The South Park Ultimate Horror Story
by Dodotastic
Summary: The residents of South Park are trapped in a story that embodies every horror movie cliche in the book. Who will survive?
1. Horror Story Sins

This was inspired by the book _How to Survive a Horror Movie _by Seth Grahame-Smith and Wes Craven. There was a line in there that screamed Cartman to me. Chapter one is really feels more like a prologue than an actual chapter to me.

Disclaimer: South Park is not mine.

* * *

It was a peaceful, Saturday night in the mountain town of South Park, Colorado. The children were all nestled snugly in their beds, dreaming of going on adventures, or blackmailing their parents into buying them the latest gaming platform, or, in the case of one particular fat little boy, nice juicy sugar plums smothered in chocolate syrup, with juicy marshmallows and fried chicken on the side. A fresh blanket of snow coated the ground and the sky shone a calm red color. All in all, a very romantic picture.

In the forest just outside of town, one faceless teenage couple was taking advantage of the picturesque scenery, as well as their hormones, to do a little exploring of each other's bodies in the comfort of a shiny, new sports car. These teenagers, unfortunately for them, were in the process of committing the number one sin of the genre in which this story takes place: sex. The consequence for this sin, as well as any other sin of the horror genre, is a gory death.

Unbeknownst to the teens, they were being watched. Lurking in a nearby cluster of dense bushes, their would-be killer growled. Catching sight of people in general was enough to fill the creature with a murderous rage, but seeing people partaking in a horror-genre sin made its blood boil like nothing else. Ever so slowly, the beast slunk towards its oblivious prey, careful to give no warning of its presence. By the time these foolish adolescents learned of the magnitude of their deed, it would be too late.  
In one fell motion, the creature was upon the automobile, ripping apart the hood with its claws, while saliva dripped generously from its hungry mouth. The quiet serenity that had laid over the quiet mountain town was shattered by a shrill scream, which pierced the night, and even managed to wake up a few of those closest to the scene. Needless to say, that couple would not live to commit any more horror-story sins.

ooo

Sunday morning, the attack was all over the news. There wasn't a soul in the hick town that was unaware of the fate of those two nameless teenagers. After all, there were rarely stories of interest on the news stations. A mysterious murder terrified the over reactive adults of South Park, and even intrigued the more level headed children. The attack scene itself had left the police baffled. Even Mayor McDaniels was curious enough to pay it a visit.

"So tell me officer, what is it about this murder that you don't understand?"she inquired of the nearest investigator.

"Well," he began, "as there are no bodies to be found, we actually have no evidence that the missing kids are really dead; we do, however, have large quantities of blood spattering the area that cause us to assume. Anyway, as far as the evidence we've obtained goes, first, the hood of the car appears to have been torn off in a way that none of us can make any sense of, and second," he paused for dramatic effect.

"Second?" the mayor prodded, annoyed at the incompetence of all of the people that surrounded her.

"Second, if you note the way the brush is crushed, as well as the giant, bear/pig and man like foot prints that appear all throughout the area, it can be determined that the thing that did this was obviously some kind of large bearmanpig-ish monster, or a giant ten-assed turtle."

"Manbearpig, right," she scoffed, having dealt with such silly notions in the past. "Anyway, as there's really nothing else happening in town, I want all of you officers on this case pronto. I want you to find out what happened to those missing teenagers, and save them if at all possible, which is highly unlikely."

"Actually, Mayor," another investigator interrupted, "none of us are actually cops. We're just a bunch of intelligent tourists that watch a bit too much CSI that happened to stumble upon this scene. It's been fun, but if you want a real detective, try that guy," he extended a finger in the direction of a mildly overweight, awkward looking man in a police uniform.

"Barbrady," the mayor said with a disgusted sneer. Still, it probably wouldn't be good for her image if she let this case go uncompleted, and a bad image meant no reelection. She gave an inward sigh, again cursing whatever misdeed had dropped her in Hick-town, U.S.A. The officer stared dumbly at his superior. "All right, I want you to investigate the case of the mysterious monster that has abducted these teenagers. Do you think you might be capable of doing that?"

"I'll get right on it Mayor," Barbrady replied in his loud, irritating voice. Mayor McDaniels silently prayed that this man would never have children.

Having seen enough of the so-called baffling crime scene to satisfy her curiosity, the mayor motioned to her aides to follow her back to the car. After the morning's events, she was quite eager to return to her office, where she could sit in her fancy chair and feel important for the rest of the day. As much as she hated this redneck town, Ms. McDaniels really did adore being mayor.

ooo

The remainder of the day continued on as normal. The men all went to the bar to holler in agonized frustration as their team lost the big game, the women met at Sheila Broflovski's house to pursue her cause of getting R rated movies in general banned from theatres across the nation, the sexually confused tried to find their place in the world at the local lesbian bar, the little girls began working on their new list of which boys they would never date, and the little boys played a game of football in the park. It was from this game that little Token Black left a little bit early, so that he could walk the greater distance to his out-of-the-way home.

The boy loved walking home. No matter how much he assured the other kids that he didn't mind being rich anymore, he couldn't help loving the feeling of poverty he got when he traversed point A to point B on foot. Sure it was colder, less comfortable, and sometimes dangerous, but that was the fun of it. What good was life if you were always living in comfort?

What Token did not know, was that he, as the teenagers before him, was committing a horror-genre sin. In fact, he was committing two.

In the blink of an eye, darkness set in, which Token found mildly disconcerting. This, however, was South Park, and odd things were known to happen inexplicably; he picked up his pace. As he power walked down the road, every street lamp suddenly flickered off at the same time. He paused to gawp at the abnormal event. It seemed that somebody out there really wanted it dark. His mood evolved from slightly uncomfortable to rather nervous, and, as is often the case when nervous people solitarily traverse a street in the dark, the little boy began to feel as though he were being followed. He halted again and turned around, just to make sure he was truly alone. There was no one to be seen. Nonetheless, paranoia was rapidly kicking in, so he again increased speed. Token was sure that he could now hear footsteps behind him, but when a second glance again revealed nothing, the frightened kid broke into an all-out run.

He stopped to catch his breath only when he was certain that whatever might have been following him was gone. He leaned against a lamppost, breathing heavily. The boy was almost home; it was just a little bit farther. He began the last leg of his journey. Unfortunately, the boy's brief stop for air had been fatal. No sooner than had he taken two steps, the embodiment of his recent paranoia sprang into existence via some nearby bushes that Token could have sworn were not there a second ago.

He began to run away. It wasn't far to his house; he still had a chance. He was now regretting his choice to walk home alone. It's so easy to be attacked when you're alone. The child had broken into an all-out sprint, fueled by adrenaline, and too terrified to check if the horrible beast was even in pursuit. His front door drew closer and closer. Token was perhaps twenty feet away when he fell into the trap that all chase victims fall into. A rock sprung up out of no where, causing the boy to trip and fall flat onto the ground. The monster was on him in a second.

As all who foolishly committed horror-story sins before him, little Token Black, the only black child in all of South Park, had no chance.

* * *

I really hate this chapter. A lot. I'm a negative person. Ch. 2 will hopefully be better so, please read it if you feel so inclined. Sorry for the lame intro. And page breaks are evil.


	2. The Square

Thanks to my super-awesome reviewer Sweet Possum! Now for chapter 2 which, was indeed, slightly better than chapter one, at least in my opinion.

Disclaimer: I still do not own South Park

* * *

Mrs. Garrison entered her fourth-grade classroom on Monday morning, the weekend's incidents at the front of her mind. Horror movies had never intrigued her like television sitcoms did, but she was, nonetheless, vaguely aware of the rules, and it seemed to her as if some of South Park's recent events had walked right out of one. Being the nice, caring teacher that she was, the transsexual wanted to make sure that her kids knew the rules as well. After all, if there were no fourth-graders, then there would be no need for a fourth-grade teacher, and Mrs. Garrison rather liked her job.

"All right everyone, shut up," she yelled over the chattering students. The fourth-graders complied. "Today's lesson will about horror movies. First, however–"

"My parents say I'm not supposed to watch those," Butters said in his sheepish manner from his usual seat beside Eric Cartman.

Mrs. Garrison stared at the naive blond; every cell in her body was urging her to explode on the boy, to call him the foulest of names, and perhaps even smack him across the knuckles with a ruler for good measure. Oh how she wished corporal punishment was still allowed in schools. She, however, refrained. After all, Mrs. Garrison, already a good teacher, had pledged that morning to become an even better, more loved teacher. She ignored the comment and continued. "We need to take role."

"But we never take role Mrs. Garrison." It was Bebe this time.

"Why whatever do you mean Bebe dear?" the balding woman asked pleasantly. "The state requires that we take role every morning, and so, every morning we take role." She was going to be a good teacher if it damn well killed her. She shifted her attention to the role call. "Now, Token–"

"Who are you and what have you done with Mrs. Garrison?" Cartman chimed in.

Screw the pledge. If the students didn't want to respect her attempts at bettering herself, then she wouldn't bother trying. The insults she had been repressing for the last several minutes erupted. "I am Mrs. Garrison you maggot-infested retard! This is all preparation for my wonderfully educational lesson plan you idiots!" Not quite the truth. "Now I want all of you to sit down, shut up, and let me finish the Goddamn role call! Token," she called out a second time.

"Mrs. Garrison?"

"Craig, what did I just say?"

"But–"

"Craig, there's a seat in the councillor's office with your name on it. Why don't you go take it?"

"But–"

"Now!" Mrs. Garrison was visibly fuming. Craig opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it and raised his middle finger instead before hopping out of his desk and leaving the classroom. "Now where was I?" The transsexual teacher asked pleasantly. "Oh yes, Token?"

No answer.

"Haha, very funny. Token?" Again, she received no answer. "Token, do you want to go join Craig?"

"That's what Craig was trying to say Mrs. Garrison." This time, it was Clyde speaking, albeit a bit more anxiously. "Token's absent today."

"Oh, well then," she responded irately. Already this was shaping up to be another disastrous day at South Park Elementary. "Why don't we just skip role call altogether then." She was met with irritated groans from the students. "Oh can it. Now for today's lesson," she let a brief silence ensure for an ambient effect. The kids stared at her in the same, bored way they always did. The woman really hated children sometimes. "Horror movies," she said at last. "They can be cheesy, they can be scary, they can be the stupidest, most illogical thing you'll ever see in your miserable little lives, but they all typically follow a set pattern. Now, horror is it's own genre, but within it, there exist a number of other sub-genres. Can anyone name me one?"

Nobody moved to respond.

"Anybody?" Again, nothing. "How about you Stan?"

From the look on his face, it was obvious that Stan Marsh did not know the answer. He said the first thing that came to mind. "Ghosts?" It seemed like a logical choice.

"Ghosts, as in haunted houses, as in man-made products gone wrong. Yes, that is a genre, albeit, not a very creative one. How about you Kyle?"

Kyle didn't seem to know the answer any more than Stan, but he too ventured a guess. "Murderers?"

"Murderers, yes. Chainsaw-wielding psychopaths, or evil masterminds, or even inbred mutants with axes. Those are called Slashers. Another, Kenny?"

"Brr mrrph mrrph," he responded with more confidence than his friends.

"Very good Kenny. Yes, the Satanic genre includes curses and demons and other things of the like. How about you Eric?"  
Cartman was absolutely certain of his answer. "Jews."

"Jews aren't a genre in horror movies Fatass!" Kyle snapped.

"Eric, I think that may have been one of the most retarded answers you've given me. Ever. Therefore, you receive an F for the day."

"What? That's not fair!" Cartman cried; he had been so certain. He didn't think that an ingenious answer that the teacher was too dumb to see was no grounds for a failing grade. Some people just didn't appreciate his superior intellect.

"Do you want an F for tomorrow too? Don't push it mister." The teacher was beginning to develop a murderous headache.

"This is bullsh–"

"Mrs. Garrison?" the angelic voice of Wendy Testaburger interrupted.

If there was one student Mrs. Garrison hated more than trouble-making Eric, it was know-it-all Wendy. The little girl's answers were almost always correct, and the transsexual teacher despised her for it. She was loathe to admit that her politically active fourth grader was probably smarter than she was. This bothersome fact tended to result in the girl being mocked whenever she voiced her opinion in class. "What is it Wendy?" The response bordered on exasperation.

"Is this lesson in any way related to the inexplicable deaths that happened this weekend"

"What are you, Wendy? Some kind of retard like Eric?"

"Hey!" came the fat child's angry response. Racist, hateful, and manipulative he may have been, but retard he was not.

Wendy hung her head, ashamed. She had, in fact been right as usual, but Garrison wasn't about to let Wendy, or any of the other students for that matter, know that she actually believed that South Park was caught in a horror movie. After all, that made her sound like the retard she so often accused her students of being, and she definitely did not want that.

"Anyway, in horror movies there are a number of actions you can take that will, without a doubt, get you killed. These are known as the 'Horror-story Sins.' These include things like sex, splitting up, being skeptical . . ."

ooo

Recess at South Park Elementary was, as is the case at most elementary schools, the most looked forward to time of the day. The fourth grade class especially loved it, and with a teacher like Mrs. (formerly Mr.) Garrison, who could blame them?

Recess-time activities typically included football, or tetherball, or ripping on whoever somebody, usually Cartman, felt like ripping on. This was very occasionally accompanied by song and dance, as was the case with the ever popular "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch" song. Today Butters was the object of interest. A fairly small group of students from his class surrounded him as he stood by the slide, but as he spoke, they were joined by others.

"Um, I wanna invite you guys to uh–to come to my house tonight." He was speaking to Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny.

"Why?" asked Kyle, mildly interested.

"'Cause I think something real cool is going to happen tonight, and I wanted my four best friends in the whole world to be there." His smile was brimming with excited energy. He had never forgotten being cast out of their group earlier that year to be replaced by Tweek. In fact, he was still quite resentful, but Leopold 'Butters' Stotch had few friends, and even though these four had often abused him, of all the kids he knew, save for perhaps for the second-grader, Dougie, they were the nicest to him.

"What's this 'real cool' something?" Stan questioned.

"Oh, well," the blond began nervously bouncing from his heels to his toes.

"Well?" cut in Cartman, drawing out the word.

"Well, I don't actually know but I think it's supposed to be real cool."

"Ugh," Cartman grunted. "And how do you know if it's gonna be really cool if you don't know what it is? Besides, Butters," he put a hand on the smaller boy's shoulder as if to comfort him, "your definition of 'cool' is 'Hello Kitty's Island Adventure.' Quite different from the real definition of the word." There was a small chorus of "yeahs" and "that's rights" from the slowly growing crowd.

"But you gotta listen to what happened." Butters pressed on.

"All right, we're listening." Kyle's tone was seemed slightly annoyed, but he was curious in spite of himself.

"Y'see, on Saturday my mom and dad found this old movie just lyin' there on the table. At first they thought I'd left it there, and they were gonna ground me again, but for some reason they believed me when I told 'em I didn't do it. That was kinda weird, but we all sat down and watched the movie anyway. I saw some of the most weird things I'd ever seen before." He had the look of a storyteller, enamored by the very story he was telling. His voice was dark (for Butters anyway) with suspense. The other kids were listening intently for the most part.

"What did you see?" Stan asked, beguiled.

"Well, it was all in black and white, and it made the screen go kinda blitzy. But then a bunch of strange, unrelated stuff started appearing on screen, like a funny looking square, an eyeball, and an iceberg, and a house, some dead cows, an ugly man brushing his hair in a mirror, a talking piece of poo, and some other stuff. Then I guess it must've been pretty dry, 'cause we all got nosebleeds."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Cartman condescended. "Leave it to Butters to think that a bunch of crap he sees on a badly damaged video is the coolest thing in the world." A few of the other kids laughed at this.

"Wait Eric, I'm not finished yet. That's not the best part."

"What Butters? Did Hello Kitty crawl out of the TV?"

"No, but we did get a phone call right after the movie was done."

"I'm sure."

"And you know what it said?"

"Seven days?" Cartman was getting rather annoyed with the blond. He had seen this movie before, and quite frankly didn't like it. (Though he would never tell anyone that it was because The Ring had in fact scared him beyond words). The story was simple. Unsuspecting person watches movie, mysterious voice says "seven days," and person dies in a week. Butters certainly wasn't being very creative, but that wasn't new.

"Close, it said two." Butters finished with a smile. Cartman slapped his forehead in disgust. "So I figured that something cool's gonna happen tonight."

"Butters do you realize that sounds like it walked right out of a bad horror movie?" Cartman was again being skeptical. The other kids, however, were awed by Butters story.

"What do you think the cool thing could be?" Asked Leroy.

"I dunno, but I'm hoping it's something real, super cool, like a pony."

"Do you think I could borrow it Butters?"

"Of course Dog Poo. Come on over after school and I'll give it to you."

"Thanks," the filthy kid replied jubilantly.

An indignant Cartman tried to redirect the attention of the other kids on the playground from Butters to himself, but it was all in vain. He swore and went to go play tetherball by himself. There was only one other child on the playground that wasn't trying to prod Butters for more information on the 'real cool' movie. That child was Wendy Testaburger.

Wendy had listened intently to Butters's story, and had been disturbed by how much it sounded, as Cartman had been so quick to point out, like a horror movie. Despite Mrs. Garrison's earlier accusations, the little girl in the pink beret was still convinced that her town was trapped in a horror story. As a precaution, she had gone out and procured a copy of a horror movie survival guidebook. It sure was going to come in handy; of this she was certain.

The bell rang, signifying the end of recess, and the students all filed back to their classes.

ooo

That night, at about 6:57, the Stotch family sat around their television, watching some prime time TV. Despite Butters's popularity in school that day, none of his classmates had taken him up on his offer to visit and see the events the boy had spoken so enthusiastically about at recess. Their loss, the naive little boy thought to himself as his eyes remained fixed on the clock.

Mr. and Mrs. Stotch had watched the psychotic movie with their son, but they had thought that both the movie and the phone call afterwards had been part of a hoax, perhaps set up by one of those juvenile delinquents they were so certain Butters was hanging around with. By now, they had forgotten all about that peculiar film they had watched merely two days prior at exactly 7:00 p.m. It was for this reason that they were so surprised when the cable went out.

Butters bounced up and down in his seat. "Oh goody!" he cheered giddily.

"Butters, did you do this?" his father demanded sternly.

"Oh no sir," the boy replied, all of the joy in his voice just a second prior gone.

"Are you lying to me?" The brunet man began rising from his seat, hand raised.

"No sir!" he pleaded. So engaged in their family matters were they, that none of the Stotches noticed the deathly white girl crawling out of the television.

"You are grounded Mister!"

"Aww, hamburgers, not again."

"Ahem." The three turned to stare at the intruder in their home.

"How did you get in here?" inquired Mr. Stotch. The demonic little girl opened her mouth and let out a clicking sound before hobbling in the direction of the family.

"It's not a pony, but it is pretty cool, I guess."

"Shut up Butters, unless you want another week added to your punishment." The blond boy looked sheepishly at the ground. "And as for you," he turned toward the waddling little girl. Her movement reminded Mr. Stotch ever-so-slightly of a duck, which he found quite comical. However, funny or not, this child was an intruder in his home, and he wanted her out. "Listen Missy, I don't know who you think you are, but this is our house, and you are trespassing. Now I can give you two options: get out, or be removed by the police." The girl continued ambling in the direction of the Stotches.

"Honey, maybe she's deaf and can't hear you. Or perhaps she's foreign. She does kind of look Asian." The girl from the television was becoming increasingly annoyed as the Stotch family continued their discussion. Usually when she did this "coming out of the television set" bit, people got scared, but this family was making a mockery of her. Never in her afterlife had little Sasa felt so embarrassed. These people were going to die–or they were going to as soon as she reached them. The undead child was a turtle when it came to walking.

As the family argued, she drew closer, and closer, and closer stil,l until finally she was close enough to make her move. She let out an ear-splitting scream as she pounced upon the Stotch family. They didn't know what had hit them until too late. Needless to say, she got her revenge for being ignored.

* * *

My apologies to all of the Butters fans. Sasa is obviously a parody of Samara/Sadako from _The Ring_, but I didn't want to use the exact same character so I tweaked a few things. I really wish that I wrote better dialogue.


	3. Never Accept Kisses from Strangers

Yay chapter three! Yay reviewers! Yay cake! But I can't write Cartman to save my life, and I still don't own South Park.

* * *

One can only wonder where the parents of South Park were as their nine-year-old children walked the streets alone after dark. After all, it is from darkness that the evil creatures of lore live and thrive. The bogeyman, monsters, werewolves, demons, zombies, and of course vampires typically favor nighttime as opposed to day. These creatures were, however, as far as Bebe Stevens was concerned, mere myth. She was on her way to the candy store that night, eager to buy a new bag of lemon-flavored gumdrops, and nothing was going to get in her way.

The blonde little girl had arrived at the shop without incident, but the journey home would not be so carefree. Sucking on a gumdrop, Bebe sauntered past an old tree, oblivious as a bat fluttered out of it and landed on the ground in front of her. Oblivious was she, that is, until the bat transformed itself into a rather attractive (for being stuck in a nine-year-old's body) boy, wearing a rather tacky cape. The frizzy-haired girl's jaw dropped in astonishment–she almost lost her gumdrop in the process.

When the boy spoke, it was with a peculiar accent that Bebe had never heard before. "Excuse me," the boy began. My name is Count Dracula and I vant to suck your blood."

"Come again?" The little girl asked, head cocked.

"I said," he cleared his throat, "my name is Count Dracula, and I vant to suck your blood."

"Oh, err, that's nice." Apparently this boy was a little crazy. Why were the cute ones always crazy? Oh well, he did have pretty eyes, and of course, a nice ass, hidden by a cape or not. "I have some gumdrops, do you want any?" She extended a hand full of the little candies in an effort to be friendly.

"Oh, um, don't mind iff I do," he said with his heavy accent. Bebe watched as he plucked a candy from her hand and stuck it in his mouth. His face contorted in disgust.

"You don't like it?" the little girl asked regretfully.

"Oh no, I do, but," he clutched her wrist, "I'd prefer you much more." The blond's face was bright red. "How would you like a kiss?"

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice was warning Bebe of the consequences of kissing random men, but she was so lost in this Dracula boy's beautiful eyes, that she paid it no heed. As his fangs sunk into her flesh, a thought along the lines of _something's a bit wrong here_ popped into her head, but was quickly pushed into the corner with the other warnings. It wasn't until the world around her started to turn black that she realized that accepting kisses from strangers probably isn't a very good idea.

ooo

"All right class," Mrs. Garrison began in an irritated manner. Garrison was in a foul mood today. Of course, she was usually in a foul mood, but today she was especially perturbed. That morning, she had entered her kitchen only to find that her girlfriend of three days had walked out on her. She went to make coffee, only to find that she was out, and when she went to buy some on the way to school, she realized that her wallet had been forgotten at home. Finally to top it all off, she stepped in dog shit right outside of the school. Nope, not a good day.

"Let's see if we can make the role go faster today shall we? Now, who's not here?" Her eyes scanned the classroom, looking, not for absent faces, but rather who to vent her anger on.

"Token's gone again."

Locked on target. Ready to fire. "Craig, I was being rhetorical. I can see that Token's not here," she said, excitement disguised as annoyance. Craig's middle finger shot up, as predicted. "Wha– do you think it's funny to do that Craig?"

"Do what?" He stared blankly at the teacher, putting the offending appendage away.

"You know very well what you did!" Yelling at a bunch of stupid fourth graders really did wonders for Garrison's mood. Craig's finger shot right back up. "That's it! Get out of here!" the unbalanced transsexual demanded.

"What'd I do?" he asked nasally.

"Are you gonna argue with me? Get out now!" The little boy in the blue, floppy-eared hat bolted out of the classroom. Of all the things in the world that didn't scare Craig, his fourth-grade teacher was not one. Mrs. Garrison was feeling better already. The class, used to antics like this by now, had been talking quietly amongst themselves.

"I wonder what happened with Butters last night," Stan commented. He had wanted to witness whatever event was to take place at the Stotch residence the previous night, but his parents were having the Broflovski's over for dinner, so he was forced to remain at home.

"Nothing," sighed Cartman, annoyed with the Marsh boy.

"How do you know? You didn't go over there last night either," he demanded. Stan usually wasn't confrontational, but Cartman had been behaving like a prick ever since Butters had mentioned watching that movie.

"Look Stan, if little pussies like you wanna believe in things like cursed or–excuse me–enchanted video tapes, then that's just fine, but seriously people like me, know that Butters will believe anything you tell him. Probably what happened is, his parents, who had seen _The Ring _before, were prank called right after they all watched that strange movie he was talking about yesterday. And because they thought that Butters had already watched _The Ring_ even though they told him not to, they thought he might be scared, so they probably told him that the video they just watched was "enchanted," and gonna grant him wishes or something like that."

"Do you know how stupid that sounds?" asked the boy in the red poof-ball hat.

"I'm actually kind of wondering where Butters is right now," interrupted Kyle mild concern in his voice.

"If I just got a pony, I'd skip school to ride it all day too," Bertha, also known as Rebecca and, more commonly Red cut in from across the room, causing Cartman to smack his palm to his forehead in frustration. Why was he so much more intelligent and mature than the people around him? He never could seem to find an answer to his question.

The red-head continued. "Though that doesn't explain where Bebe is."

"Bebe's missing too?" Kyle asked.

"Yeah, it's not like her to miss school," chimed in Annie, the other girl in the class with curly, blond hair.

"I saw her after school yesterday, and she seemed just fine." Esther gave her two cents.

Other girls continued entering the conversation, giving their accounts of the frizzy blonde-haired girl's condition the last time they had seen her, and offering up speculations as to where she was now. The four boys sitting in the center of the classroom vaguely wondered how their conversation had been taken over by a bunch of dumb girls. None of them particularly cared about Bebe, or Butters for that matter, but at least they knew the latter well enough to converse about him. As long as the conversation remained focused on Bebe, there would be no participation from the boys. Cartman opened his mouth to shut them up, but Wendy beat him to it.

"No, it all makes perfect sense that Bebe, and Butters, and even Token are missing. It all fits right in with the horror movie thing!" the little girl stated authoritatively.

Cartman shook his head. "Oh no, here we go again."

Mrs. Garrison, having already sent Craig out of the classroom, began writing math problems on the board. She didn't hear the class's discussion, or if she did, was ignoring it. Wendy continued. "It makes sense from a horror-movie's perspective. They always kill off African-Americans first in those movies, and boobs may as well be time bombs. And Butters–well may have been a plot convenience. And then there's those missing teenagers, they were–"

Mrs. Garrison finished writing her problems and turned to face the class. She was disdained to find that a large portion of the students were focused very intently on Wendy Testaburger, and that those who weren't, were making a great show of ignoring her. The transsexual teacher clenched her fists.

"Is there something you'd like to say Wendy?"

Realizing she'd been caught, Wendy "eeped" and hung her head again. She wasn't ready for a repeat of yesterday's chastising. Mrs. Garrison was always so stubborn, there was no sense in arguing her point. "No ma'am," she responded.

"Then shut up and pay attention!" her comment was directed at the entire class. "Now, Clyde what is 10 x 5?" Before the boy could answer, Mr. Mackey entered the room, an unfamiliar boy in tow. While the adults conversed, the rest of the class took a chance to get a good look at the strange boy. A new kid! That meant someone new to rip on, and what an easy target this kid would be. He was deathly pale, and wore a really tacky cape, way too much sun-block, and a sunhat that completely clashed with the rest of his outfit.

"All right class, it looks like we just got another transfer student," Garrison explained after the councillor had left. "This is Count Dracula all the way from Transylvania. That makes him European like Pip." The British boy perked up at hearing his name. "Now why don't you go sit down in one of those empty desks over there." The teacher ordered. Little Dracula complied without a word.

The male half of the classroom was eager to rip on this eccentric newcomer at the first chance they got, but the female half was feeling quite the opposite. Despite Dracula's totally unfashionable apparel, he was very attractive. Powder giggled and shyly introduced herself to him as he took a seat between Pip and herself. All throughout the lesson, the young ladies stared at the new boy, stopping only to whisper and giggle amongst themselves. That day, there were a lot of little girls that didn't learn any math. Wendy, once again, was the only one to notice anything odd. The name? The sun block? The hat? Everything about him screamed one word to her: vampire.

The boys in the class, with a few exceptions were already bothered by the new kid. Most of the boys had yet to discover the opposite sex, yet it still managed to infuriate them that this dorky kid from Europe could come in and become popular with the female half of the classroom without trying. It was almost as if he was asking them to beat him up.

In fact the only boy in the class that wasn't angry with the new kid was Pip. Being the polite gentleman that he was, the British boy had decided to introduce himself properly. "Hello, my name is Phillip Pirrip, but everybody just calls me Pip. It's a pleasure to meet you." Dracula seemed to be uncomfortable with the blond, but didn't give him any indication.

"I'm ever so glad that you transferred here. You see, I don't really have many friends, well any friends really. I just can't seem to understand why. Oh well. It is rather jolly that you're here now. Perhaps we can be friends." Pip continued on with his banter, oblivious to the eccentric Transylvanian's growing discomfort.

Everyone had known that spending any amount of time with the stereotypically British boy would make anyone scream, but no one had expected the new kid to do it. Dracula screamed without warning. It was an unearthly screech that caused the classroom's lightbulbs to burst and anything lighter that a human being to fly through the air. Poor Kenny McCormick wound up with a pencil passing right through his head, which killed him instantly.

"Oh my God! You killed Kenny!" Stan exclaimed in his typical fashion.

"You bastard!" Kyle finished.

Gravity restored itself in the classroom as the vampire calmed down. He stared at his classmate's lifeless body in shock. "I am sorry," Dracula muttered apologetically, but the apology fell on deaf ears, as the rest of the class was already in the process of collecting their scattered items.

"Oh goody!" Pip cheered. "You're exactly like my other friend Damien. I'm not entirely sure what happened to him, but from now on we can be best mates!" The blond boy was beaming. Mrs. Garrison shook her head in dismay. This was going to be another long day.

ooo

Officer Barbrady may have been a terrible policeman, but he did have an abundance of luck most of the time. It was luck that led him to the eerie cave that he stood before now. He had been following a runaway turkey when he stumbled upon the cave, and even with all of the intelligence of a dead fish, he was quite certain that this cave was the monster's den, his logic being that monsters live in caves, and this was the first one he had come across. With his gun at ready and his flashlight providing him with visibility, the incompetent law officer entered the foreboding cavern.

The cave turned out to be rather shallow. Its mouth was barely out of site when he first saw the bodies. The first he saw were of the missing teenagers. He had found them! For one of the very few times in his career, he had accomplished the task that he had been assigned. The mayor was going to be so pleased with him. _But,_ he thought, _if I can figure out who these other bodies are, I'll bet she'll be even more happier._

Barbrady fully entered the room, shining his flashlight on the victims. Here was little Token Black, and over there were some sixth graders. And in the corner to his right, there lay a fresh pile of bodies. Upon further inspection, the officer recognized Skeeter and his friends, as well as the bartender, Mr. McCormick, another red-haired man, and a few of the other regulars at the bar. Had he been observant, Barbrady would have noted that the creature must have raided it fairly recently. However, the awkward man was not observant, a flaw which would be the death of him.

He didn't hear the pounding sound that accompanied the footsteps of a large, hungry monster, nor did he hear it's heavy breathing coming from directly behind him. It wasn't until the beast let out a violent roar that Officer Barbrady was even aware of its presence, but, as was always the case, he noticed too late.

* * *

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. At some point the boys will start doing more, I promise!


	4. Four Goths and a Guinea Pig

Mmm, procrastination. Stan and Kyle actually got to do something this chapter, yay! In other news, I still really, really can't write Cartman for the life of me.

* * *

It was Wednesday morning, and already the class was beginning to understand Wendy's once illogical view of the weekend's events. Then again, South Park was well-known for its plethora of illogical situations, from zombie outbreaks, to gargantuan singers intent on the destruction of the world, to a little boy whose death and resurrection were as commonplace as going to school, or eating lunch. Still, the children of South Park Elementary had all believed that Wendy's claims of the occult were just a little bit too unlikely for them.

Now, however, with Powder, Annie, Francis, Jason, and Leroy, in addition to Token, Bebe, and Butters inexplicably absent from the class, it was beginning to occur to the students that the liberal-minded little girl in the pink beret might have been right. Mrs. Garrison, as initially adamant about the idea as she had been, had taken quite the opposite stance now that a large portion of her class attributed the disappearances to horror movies. After all, there were a few things Janet loved more than proving to the little ingrates just how intellectually stunted they were. With such a disturbingly large percentage of the classroom gone, the teacher would have to come up with a new explanation as to the missing children.

"Now class," she began in a relatively polite manner, "as I am sure you've noticed, we're missing quite a few more students today than we were yesterday. Despite what some of the more uneducated among you may claim," she gave a brief nod in an indignant Wendy's direction, "this is most obviously the work of drugs," the teacher finished with an accomplished nod. "Now personally, I don't give a shit if you're on drugs or not, but skipping my class in order to do them is something I simply will not tolerate!

"In a few minutes we'll have a special guest come in and give you a lecture while I catch up on my sleep, but in the meantime, is there anything any of you have to say for yourselves? Aside from Wendy that is, 'cause we really don't need to listen to anymore of her horror-movie bull shit," she added as an afterthought. She glanced around the classroom, looking for her first victim. "Tweek," she indicated a spastically twitching blond boy in the front row. "Are you on drugs?"

"Gah!" he replied, jittery as always, "You can't ask me that! It's too much pressure!" His eyes sporadically shifted from the teacher, to each student in the classroom, and then back to the teacher. They were out to get him–all of them were. He was certain of it. Especially that Kenny McCormick. Tweek knew the orange-parka wearing nine-year old had it in for him for taking his spot among his friends. The coffee-addict was certain that it was the reason why Kenny had returned from his untimely death yesterday, and was now sitting in between Cartman and Stan as if nothing was wrong. Unfortunately, every other soul that Tweek had tried to tell this to brushed off his concerns.

Garrison had been eyeing her jittery student sadistically as he twitched, lost in silent thought and glancing at Kenny more often than the other students. Still, when another child raised his hand, it was Janet Garrison's duty as a teacher to call on him.

"What do you want uh–"she hesitated, looking for a name. When none came, she continued on, "whatever your name was?" she asked, slightly annoyed at having to switch targets.

"Actually, I do have something to say Mrs. Garrison,"came the voice of Dog Poo, upset that his teacher of two years had forgotten his name.

"I could tell that, genius of the year, why else would you have your hand up?" The teacher ridiculed.

The filth-covered brunette ignored the criticism, and continued in a concerned voice. "I actually borrowed the movie Butters was talking about from him on Monday, and the same thing happened to me with the telephone and everything. Am I gonna die tonight Mrs. Garrison? I'm scared!"

The transsexual teacher shook her head in annoyance. "No Bobby," she ventured a guess.

"Dog Poo," he corrected.

"Dog Poo, whatever. You're not going to die tonight, because Butters didn't die the other night. You see, Billy,"

"Dog Poo."

"One of your fellow students," he laid his eyes on Wendy Testaburger, and there they stayed, "has been filling your heads with some nonsense of ghosts, and zombies, and demons and all kinds of bull shit–"

"But Mrs. Garrison," Kyle Broflovski interrupted, "weren't you the one pointing out all of the horror genre warning signs on Monday?"

"Kyle, I did no such thing!"

Mr. Mackey conveniently chose that moment to walk into the classroom. "Hello students," he said deliberately. "It has come to my attention that some of you are on drugs." The last word he spoke with particular venom, which didn't sound particularly venomous coming from the elementary school councillor. "Now, there's something I want you to know about drugs class, m'kay?"

"Drugs are bad, m'kay," the students all chimed in nonchalantly in an impersonation of their councillor's voice. After spending years with the eccentric man and his mundane claims, it was easy to see where this conversation was going.

"That's right, drugs are bad, m'kay," he stated again with more confidence.

Wendy's hand shot up into the air. "Mr. Mackey?"

"Oh no, here we go again," Garrison muttered, popping some Aspirin.

"Yes Wendy?"

"I don't think half of the class is on drugs."

"Wendy, I'm the councillor, I think I know when kids are on drugs, m'kay," the large-headed man asserted impatiently.

"No Mr. Mackey, I think there's something bigger than a drug ring going on in South Park right now." The dark-haired girl was equally assertive.

"Bigger than drugs, m'kay?" the councillor asked, shaken enough to nearly forget the trademarked "mmkay" at the end of his sentence.

"Yes Mr. Mackey, bigger than drugs . . . m'kay," she added as an afterthought. If she was going to reach him, Wendy decided it would be best to speak on his level. "I believe that the deaths of Bebe, Token, Butters, and all of the others were caused by several events at the supernatural level. For example, a monster capable of ripping the hoods off of cars, or a vampire capable of draining all of the blood in a human's body." Dracula, from his seat beside Pip, stiffened at her claim. "The initial deaths all fell into the cliches of the horror genre, but you can be sure that there will be more deaths, and these ones may be more difficult to predict."

"You know," Stan began thoughtfully, "Wendy's got some good points, I think." Stan typically considered himself above watching horror movies. He had watched one once, with his family, but while his father was clinging to his mother, and his mother was clutching him, he and Shelley had both thought that the movie had been predictable and stupid–one of the few times the siblings agreed. As such, he wasn't particularly aware of trends in such movies, but he was certain that if Wendy was so adamant about it, then perhaps there was some truth to what she was saying.

"Yeah," Kyle said, nodding in agreement.

"Mrr, broff brimey mrrfity murfy murph," Kenny proclaimed, muffled by his parka as usual. However, he might have said something along the lines of "Yeah, those movies usually don't end until there are only a few characters left. I don't wanna die again."

Cartman stared at his friends, wide-eyed. He was having trouble believing that the friends he considered so intelligent–well more intelligent than Craig and Those Guys anyway–were actually gullible enough to believe the words coming out of Wendy's mouth. He had no idea what the hippie was planning, but it was up to him to protect his friends from it. "Aw, come on guys, you can't listen to that bitch." Wendy shot him a dirty look. "She's a hippie, which makes her stoned, since all hippies are stoned. And you know that stoned people, and Jews for that matter,"

"Don't start Fatass," Kyle interrupted. The interruption, however, was ignored.

"Don't possess the superior brains of people like me. Therefore, through strict scientific observation, we can determine that Wendy–and Kyle–do not know what they're talking about. Thank you." He took a bow in the manner of one who had just made an observation that would change the future of mankind.

Kyle glared at him disgustedly. "Wow, that's pure genius right there. Did it take you all night to think that up?" he jeered.

Mr. Mackey replied before the ill-mannered, overweight bigot could. "Wendy, is that right? Are you stoned, m'kay?"

"What, no!" She looked utterly dumbfounded.

"Wendy, it's not nice to lie, m'kay." He pulled out a pamphlet and began taking notes. "I'm going to recommend that you come in for some counseling. Don't worry Wendy, we'll have your problem fixed in a jif, m'kay?" With that, he marched to the back of the classroom, grabbed a protesting Wendy by the hand, and dragged her off to his office.

ooo

Stan and Kyle ditched Cartman at lunch that day. They, like many of the other students had begun taking the claims Wendy had been making all week into serious consideration. Unlike the majority of the other students, however, when it came to things they cared about, these boys were quite proactive. With their lives potentially on the line, this was definitely one of those times.

Kenny had, of course wanted to come too, but as Kyle had put it, "We need someone to keep the Fatass from interfering. It's one of the few things he's actually good at." Thus, he and Stan had gone off for an afternoon of potential adventure, and Kenny had been left to listen to Cartman complain about how much he hated those guys, and how he and Kenny were gonna have fun without them. The parka-clad boy was less than thrilled.

Meanwhile, Stan and Kyle, though eager to save their necks from whatever was threatening to break them this time, had no idea where to begin. They gazed around the playground in a desperate search for ideas, but inspiration was proving elusive today.

"Maybe we could try Wendy?" Stan suggested half-heartedly.

"The problem is, she's still 'getting help' from Mr. Mackey. Who knows when we'll get the chance to talk to her," his red-haired friend replied.

"And I guess it doesn't really make sense to sit around wasting time while there are," he paused, looking for a word, "things on the loose. Who knows, we could get eaten while we're waiting." They both paused to think about that, neither liking what their inner eye saw.

"Right," Kyle murmured after a while. Wheels began turning in his nine-year old mind. "Well, Garrison was talking about 'sins of the horror genre' the other day in class."

"What?" Stan asked. He hadn't been particularly attentive to the lecture that day, but then again, it was rare that anyone paid attention to their teacher's more bizzare lessons.

"I dunno, something like surefire ways to get you killed in a horror movie, or something." He was trying hard to recollect fragments from the lesson, but like Stan, he had been ignoring it.

"Oh yeah," the darker haired boy said, realization dawning on him. "You aren't suggesting we talk to her about it?" he ventured skeptically.

"After what she said in class today?" Kyle commented absentmindedly. "Nah, we just need to find someone else who knows a thing or two about horror-genre sins. That way, we can find out what they are, and make sure we don't do anything that will get us killed."

Stan nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Too bad we don't know anyone like that." The two of them sighed and lapsed back into ponderous thought.

ooo

It was Stan that came up with the idea to see the goth kids. His reasoning hadn't been particularly good. "The goths like to talk about their painful lives, and horror movies are about people whose lives become painful." As little sense as it made, Stan's hunch was the only lead the boys had, and both agreed that it was better than waiting for something to kill them.

The goths weren't difficult to find. They were always in the same spot, smoking behind the school. The boys passed Cartman and Kenny on the way, the fat child speaking to the smaller boy in an exaggeratedly loud and excited voice.

"Oh look what I found Kenny! Isn't it sweet?" Kenny mumbled something unintelligible. "Yeah, I thought so too. It's so great that Stan and Kyle don't get to see it, 'cause I hate those guys. Let's make sure they never get to see this super sweet thingy, 'kay Kenny?" Despite his attempts to make his alleged friends jealous, the two walked right on by without giving Cartman a second look. "Fine!" he shouted after them angrily. "Screw you guys! Me and Kenny will just have the most awesome time in the universe without you! No Kenny, this is my super sweet thingy. You can't touch it!"

Stan and Kyle reached their destination without further incident, but were dismayed by the goths' response to their information request.

"What do you mean you won't help us?" the red-haired Jew exclaimed angrily. "Your lives are on the line too, we need that information!"

One of the goths flipped his dyed-red hair out of his eyes. "You are stereotyping us. Stereotypes are what those stupid conformists use to put a label on people that are different from them. They cause pain for the weak, and serve to further increase the strength of the corporate world. I would be loathe to help you achieve those goals, even if I knew anything about the sins of fictional characters," he muttered in an uncaring voice.

"Why would we bother to watch movies anyway?" another goth, Henrietta, commented, unsympathetic to the boys plight. "Movies are what the government uses to subject its people to its totalitarian views, for example, the perfect body type. You wouldn't catch me setting foot in one of those conformist traps if you paid me," she was referring to movie theatres.

A taller goth with curly, black hair spoke up this time. "If you're looking for answers, you'd have better luck asking one of your friends. Or you could find the answers you seek in that accursed pit of supreme conformity known as the internet. I bet you'd find something there." He shook his head and took another drag on his cigarette. The youngest of the goths remained silent.

"Yeah, the internet does sound like a good place to start," Stan commented. "Thanks guys!" he exclaimed before pulling a still mildly frustrated Kyle off in the direction of the library.

No sooner had the "conformist" boys left, than a boy who, in his own opinion better fit in with the goth crowd arrived on the scene. The goths eyes trailed from the retreating forms of Stan and Kyle, to the approaching form of Dracula.

"Excuse me," he began, again in his heavy, Transylvanian accent. "I am new here, from Transylvania, and so far ze only person who vants to be my friend, iz an annoyingly chipper British boy. Pray, may I join you in your more mature crowd?" he grinned toothily, hoping to be rid of Pip for good.

"If you wanna be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do," the tall goth explained in monotone. The vampire glanced at his clothes, which, save for the sunhat, were not too different from the clothes the goth kids wore. He shrugged and sat down with them.

ooo

Stan and Kyle had experienced much more luck in the library. When it came to digging for information online, there were few people better than Kyle. Stan could recall a time when, using his internet prowess, his best friend had almost single-handedly saved his country from a British invasion. The boys had easily found what they were looking for, and then some.

The redhead had somehow stumbled onto the report made for the missing teenagers from Sunday morning, as well as some rumors of a spooky cave, a New York newspaper which claimed that a ship had arrived from Europe with its entire crew drained of blood, and a slew of porn sites. Now, they were trying to make some sense of their facts.

"All right," Kyle began, "somewhere between Saturday night and Sunday morning, we have two teenagers committing horror sin #1 in the forest, when something with very large feet ripped off the hood off of their car and dragged them off into the night."

Stan thought it over for a minute. "Obviously the work of some kind of mutant monster, or maybe even a very large werewolf," he commented. Kyle indicated his agreement with a nod. "Therefore, we'd be safest if we carried around a chainsaw."

"Or a gun with silver bullets," the redhead added helpfully. Stan grunted his agreement. Kyle continued listing their findings. "Next we have Token, who was last seen Sunday afternoon. I think his parents have been missing too."

"That's a bit harder to place," Stan pondered.

"Anyway," Kyle added, "the black guy usually dies first in these movies, so I think we're safe."

"Right, and Butters's death was obviously caused by that movie he saw. All we have to do is not watch any strange videos. Then there was the new kid . . ."

The two continued on like this for awhile. One would mention an odd occurrence or disappearance that had plagued their community since Saturday night, and then the two would try to place the event to a killer, a cause, and a counter. By the end of recess the boys had determined that they should avoid girls like the plague, carry chainsaws, silver bullets, crosses, and garlic on them at all times, never be found anywhere alone, never go out after dark, and to never touch or view any item they were unfamiliar with. They also determined that their classmate Dracula was a vampire.

As the bell rang, Stan turned to his best friend thoughtfully as they walked back to class. He said, "I think I saw Wendy reading a book that had to do with this the other day. It might not be a bad idea to ask if we can check it out."

"But dude!" Kyle exclaimed, his voice cracking in the process, "Wendy's a girl. We already determined that girls were villain magnets. If we talk to her, there's a good chance we could get caught in the crossfire!"

"I know, dude, I know," came the reply. "But think about it. Wendy's the only other person who seems to know what's going on here. I know she's a girl, but it seems like it'd be a good idea to have her on our side anyway. Or we should at least borrow her book. Besides, she knows the rules better than we do. It's not like she'll do anything stupid."

Kyle turned this over in his head for a moment. "I guess." They began to make their way back to Mrs. Garrison's classroom, but their journey was impeded when the boys ran into the notorious "Craig and Those Guys," or some of them at least. Craig, Clyde, Tweek, and Jimmy stood before the best friends and, with the exception of Tweek, they all had angry grimaces on their faces. Tweek appeared paranoid as was usually the case.

Stan was the first to speak. "Craig," he said in greeting. "Clyde, Tweek, Jimmy. Um," he trailed off nervously as his opponents moods didn't change.

"It's people like you that get the rest of us killed," Craig accused.

"Dude, what are you talking about," Kyle retorted, slightly astonished.

"You're friends with Cartman," Clyde explained. "Right now, he's parading around the halls with some freaky glowing rock."

Craig interrupted, his voice slightly angrier than his usual tone. "Token and Jason are dead because of dumb kids like him that go off and commit some stupid sin, and then let someone else take the blame!" Kyle and Stan blinked in confusion.

"Y-yeah!" Jimmy added. "And then the worst pa–"he stopped, stutter kicking in. He tried a second time. "And then the worst p–and then the worst part is, he goes a-around ripping on the other kids for b-being cautious."

"Whoa, hold on a second," Stan held up his hands in surrender. "This is about that whole horror movie thing, right? We don't agree with Cartman. We were just about to ask Wendy if we could borrow her survival guide."

"Yeah," Kyle agreed. "If the Fatass wants to go and get himself killed it's fine with me, but we'd rather play it safe and live."

A look of apology crossed the faces of the four boys standing opposite of Stan and Kyle.

"Err, sorry about that," Clyde muttered. The two outsiders looked less than amused. He approached them slowly, until he was close enough to be within whispering range. "Look guys, Craig's just having a hard time with this. First Token and Jason disappear, and now his dad's gone missing too, so if you could cut him some slack–"

"I don't care about that," the boy in the floppy-eared hat interrupted, charging at Clyde but stopping short of running into him. He had heard Clyde's comment, despite the soft volume at which it had been made at. "Those bastards killed Stripe!" he yelled in agony pointing an accusing middle finger at his friend. Clyde put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

Tweek cut in. "I knew there was trouble when the gnomes stopped coming. There's a murderer out there! First he killed the gnomes, then he killed the others. I don't want to be next! It's too much pressure! Nngh!" The blond grunted, twitching. Jimmy glanced at the boy thoughtfully.

There was a moment of silence (save for Craig, who was muttering mournfully over his dead guinea pig) before Clyde spoke up. "Listen, in these kinds of situations, it's always best to be in large groups. That way, somebody's bound to live." The other boys nodded. "Maybe we should, I dunno, team up or something like that," he suggested.

Kyle and Stan discussed the proposition for a moment before reaching a consensus. "Considering all of the stuff that's going on," Kyle said, "It seems like a good idea." At that the six boys headed off to the classroom.

ooo

Behind the school, Dracula stared at the goths, or more specifically, their bodies. He had enjoyed their company for all of ten minutes before he became fed up at how repetitive their talk of non-conformity was, and, as was usually the case when he was annoyed, the vampire had killed them. He really hadn't meant to, it just sort of happened. The scene was made worse when a British boy with a sunny disposition came frolicking up immediately afterwards. He stopped at the sight of the dead goths.

"Oh dear, Dracula, how dreadful this is. How tragic that their lives had to end so soon, even if they were lives full of pain." His disposition changed suddenly. "Now tally ho, old chap, we really must be off to class!" The blond bounded off just as cheerfully as he had arrived. The vampire stared after him. Well, if he was doomed to have Pip as his only friend in this God-forsaken mountain town, so be it. Dracula would resign himself to his fate and, from that day forward be the British boy's new best friend.

ooo

Stan hadn't been quite as right about Wendy's intelligence concerning the present situation as he was convinced he had been. In a world where anything could be lurking around the next corner, and it was every man for himself when the beasts struck, the little girl had one fatal shortcoming. Wendy was nice. Wendy liked to help people, which is why, when Dog Poo met her outside of Mr. Mackey's office with a plea for her help, the girl in the pink beret couldn't refuse.

"Please Wendy," he had begged, tears in his eyes. "I'm scared. I don't want to die." The girl had shaken her head regretfully at the filthy child, but he wasn't done yet. "Please, I know you're a good person. You're better than all of the other kids. You have to protect me from whatever it is that's gonna happen tonight." She averted her eyes guiltily. "Please, just come to my house tonight, and stay with me. Please Wendy?"

Wendy knew, that if there was one thing you weren't supposed to do in horror movies (aside from all of the other things you weren't supposed to do), it was play the hero (or heroine in her case). Heroes were the ones that ran back into the haunted house to save their friends that were stuck inside. Incidentally, more often than not, the heroes wound up dead too. Still when she saw the tears in Dog Poo's eyes, she just couldn't help herself.

Now, she was at the boy's house. Dinner had just ended, and his forty-eighth hour was drawing near. Every fibre of Wendy's being was telling her to get out of the house, run away and hide in a well-lit room that lacked closets, mirrors, clowns, or a bed that was raised more than an inch off of the floor. She cursed her niceness. She just knew that it was going to get her killed one of these days.

The clock read 7:32. It was time. Instantaneously, all of the lights in the room flickered off and the television flickered on. Dog Poo screamed and clung to Wendy, who was screaming by this point too. On the screen, Sasa was crawling out of a toilet and towards her viewers. She made her way out of the television set quick enough, and began snailing her way towards the dirt-covered little boy. He fainted. Wendy fainted too.

The demonic little girl made quick work of the boy, then shifted her attention to the girl. She had not seen the movie, so why was she here? A thought crossed Sasa's rotting brain. It was awfully inconvenient being confined to a video cassette. What if she were to possess a human body? Then she could be free to attack whomever she wanted whenever she wanted.

Her beady eyes examined the sleeping girl. Yes. If she wanted a body, now was the time to do it. This child was perfect. She had all of the requirements of an undead, cursed little girl, which amounted to pale skin and long black hair. Sasa's white lips formed into a grin, before she made a clicking sound and hopped into the body of Wendy Testaburger.

Wendy's eyes opened a few moments later. She looked herself over, and moved her limbs, as if she was seeing her body for the first time in years. Using the TV screen to view her reflection, she took off her beret and pulled her hair into her eyes. "Not too bad," she said, rather cheerfully for a cursed child. "In fact, it's quite good."


	5. A Barricade of Desks

The chapter's keep on getting longer. This is a nice example of why I shouldn't write while listening to _Little Shop of Horrors_. I personally like this chapter, but I was only half-paying attention when I wrote it. I'm not sure if it shows.

As for what I meant by my inability to write Cartman, his personality is the complete opposite of mine, so I have problems figuring out how he'd respond to certain situations. On that note, Tweek and Wendy have been the easiest for me to write thus far. Yay for chapter 5!

* * *

Mayor McDaniels's life was in a state of chaos. She sat in her desk chair, cradling her head in her arms. The phone was off its hook. It had been ringing nonstop all morning. People were finally becoming nervous about the week's disturbances, and were choosing Thursday morning to report their worries. Worse than the incessant phone calls telling of everything from missing children to gutted livestock, was the current state of South Park's only bar.

The bar, and everyone in it had apparently been attacked, and it's inhabitants (including the owner) had been killed. Now the mayor not only had to deal with the idiots of her redneck mountain town, but the sober, and furthermore bored idiots of said town. To make matters even worse, her aides had vanished, leaving the woman without anyone to vent her frustrations on.

She opened her desk drawer and eyed her emergency revolver thoughtfully. The situation was becoming desperate, and the cold, steel gun was looking mighty friendly. She picked it up, and held the weapon in her hand, thinking. She didn't notice someone enter the room.

"Excuse-ah me, Mayor?" came a voice with a heavy European accent.

The mayor jumped and turned around to face the room's new occupant, carefully hiding the gun behind her back. She noticed a rather handsome boy wearing a rather ugly hat was facing her. She noted that if he were several years older, she'd find him attractive. "Ah, I'm not seeing anyone today," she stuttered nervously. "Come back tomorrow, or not at all. That would be preferable."

The boy made no effort to move. "Did you not hear me the first time?" Mayor McDaniels asked, annoyed.

"I came to make a complaint," the boy stated. "I tried calling earlier, but I couldn't get through."

"Right," the mayor muttered, taking a seat. She had resigned herself to the fact that this kid wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon. Might as well find out what he wanted. "Well, what is it?"

"My name is Count Dracula. I vas told zat zis town vas a blood sucker's paradise." The mayor's eyes widened. He continued "Yet since I've arrived here, I've had to hunt down all of my food myself. Do you know how tedious zat is?"

The mayor stared at the child before her. Blood suckers. Hunting down food. Missing citizens. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together. The white-haired woman let out a shriek and pointed her gun at the child, who stared at her with a confused expression on his face.

"It was you!" the woman exclaimed. "You're the reason behind all of the disappearances! You've been killing the residents of South Park!"

"Vat? No. No," Dracula protested calmly. "I haff only drained ze blood ov some ov ze girls at my school. And some goths I suppose," he added as an afterthought.

So this vampire child was the cause of Mayor McDaniels's week from Hell. She was determined to make Dracula pay for it. She pointed her gun at the evil little boy, and wracked her brain for something cool to say before putting a bullet in his brain. She settled on "See you in Hell you bitch," before firing the revolver.

The mayor gave a victorious cry as Dracula's body hit the ground. However, it was transformed into cry of shock as the boy picked himself up and stared at his wound as if he had spilled punch on his favorite white shirt. Mayor McDaniels's cry then turned into one of terror when he turned a murderous gaze on her.

"Zat vas uncalled for," he snarled, and sprang toward the aging politician, fangs bared. On the bright side, she would no longer have to take any more phone calls.

ooo

Stan, Kyle, Craig, Clyde, Tweek, and Jimmy (now collectively known as "The Smart Ones") were crowded around Stan's desk, intently studying Wendy's survival guide. She had lent it to him, after school the previous day, and Stan had only put it down to sleep since. By now, he knew the book inside and out, and it wouldn't be long before the others knew too. After all, these kids had every intention of making it out of this story with their lives.

The door opened, and Eric Cartman entered, followed by Kenny McCormick. "Well," he clamored pointing at The Smart Ones, or more specifically, Stan and Kyle. "Thought you guys were just gonna ditch me for Craig and Those Guys, eh? Well that's fine. That's fine! Kenny and I will just have fun without you guys!" With that, he sat down at a desk in the back corner of the classroom, as far away from his treacherous friends as he could be. Kenny took his normal seat.

"Kenny, what are you doing?" Cartman whined. "You're supposed to be _my_ friend."

"Screw you," the boy in the orange parka spat, sounding remarkably clear for a change. The rest of his sentence, however, was incomprehensible to all but those used to hearing it, as was usually the case.

Kyle seemed infuriated at whatever it was that his parka-clad friend may have said. "Wow, you've reached an all new degree of stupid, Fatass," Kyle accused. "You don't touch unfamiliar objects, especially the glowing kind, without testing them on dogs first! Half the time they're possessed by evil spirits that want to kill you!" Apparently Kenny had died again as a result of Cartman's stupidity.

Cartman's face distorted into an angry grimace. "I'm not fat," he muttered quietly. "Fine! Screw you Kyle, screw you Stan, screw you Kenny! Timmy will be my new best friend!" He crossed his arms and glared at the group in the center of the classroom.

"Timmah," Timmy corrected. Timmy, now and always would be Jimmy's best friend. Cartman may have been a nice kid (well, a kid at least), but there was no way he could take Jimmy's position. The overweight child, however, didn't seem to notice.

The next student to file into the classroom was Wendy. "Hey Wendy," Stan greeted. "Thanks for letting us use your book." She grunted an unintelligible reply.

Something was off about the girl, Stan noted, but he couldn't quite place it. It might have been that the pink hat she so frequently wore was no where to be seen, or perhaps it was her black hair which now hung in front of her face, obscuring her eyes from view. Or maybe, the dark haired boy wondered, it was the way she was moving. She was slowly plodding to her seat, her upper body in a slouch. The way she moved was very similar to a . . .

Stan's eyes widened. No! Not Wendy! She was _the_ smart one, the first one to see the events surrounding them for what they were. The little boy refused to believe that _she_ of all people had become a victim.

"Hey Stan?" Kyle asked softly. "Does Wendy look a little different to you today?"

"What?" the boy in the red poof-ball hat jumped as if he had just seen a snake. "N-no! She looks the same as she always does.

"Oh–um–okay," the Jewish boy responded, slightly doubtful. Still, Stan was his best friend, and of the two, he knew Wendy best. Kyle decided to trust his opinion, however obviously incorrect it was. "If you say so."

For the most part, the class (including The Smart Ones) paid their classmate's drastic change in appearance no heed. There was only one other kid in the room that noticed the difference in Wendy. As a result of his astuteness, paranoid little Tweek was now in a state of utter panic.

Having always been overly-cautious, the jittery blond was apt to notice anything potentially threatening in the area surrounding his person. Wendy was definitely threatening. Her movement, appearance, and the sudden change in both could mean only one thing. Tweek knew that some kind of evil, otherworldly creature had possessed her body, and wanted the destruction of mankind. Normally, the little boy's eyes bounced all over the classroom, always looking for the next threat. Now, however, they were focused solely on Wendy.

"I wonder where Garrison is," Stan commented nonchalantly. Having convinced himself that there was nothing wrong with Wendy, it was the next thing that came to mind. He wasn't expecting Cartman to answer.

"I don't know. Maybe one of your faggy horror monsters ate him?" he suggested, mockingly. "Ugh, do you know how gay you guys are acting right now?"

"Shut up!" Kyle defended. "Let's see how hard you're laughing when that 'faggy monster' is ripping your intestines out!"

"Kyle," he exclaimed, hopping out of his seat, seriousness taking over his voice. "I always thought you were smarter than that. That when everyone else is following some stupid trend, you're always on the sidelines, pointing out just how stupid everything is," his voice took on a lighter tone, "or was that Stan? Anyway," his tone became grave again, and he began to march towards the other boy, determinedly "I thought that, if there was anyone else who wouldn't be stupidly blaming all these disappearances on imaginary monsters, it would be you."

The Jewish boy stared at the overweight bigot, unimpressed. By now, their faces were inches apart. Anger was beginning to well up inside of him, but he kept his voice calm. "I wasn't so eager to believe it in the beginning either, but now there's a bunch of evidence pointing in that direction, and it's better to be safe."

"Give me one example of this so-called 'evidence.'"

"Dracula," Kyle stated promptly.

"Dracula?" Cartman sputtered.

"Yeah, there's a whole section in this book dedicated to distinguishing vampires. Dracula is a vampire."

Cartman stared dumbly for a moment, then burst out into jeering laughter. "Oh, that was a good one," he cried between laughs. "Dracula, a vampire! Kyle, you should be a comedian." The other children gazed blankly at the fat kid currently making a fool of himself. "But I'm seriously Kyle, there's no such things as monsters, you guys are dumb, and Dracula is not a vampire."

The vampiric little boy chose that moment to enter the classroom, mouth covered in blood, and take his usual seat next to Pip. The class silently followed the handsome boy with their eyes, then shifted their attention back to Cartman, as if expecting his answer to change upon seeing that sight. The fat kid's opinion, however, remained steadfast. He had no intention of proving Kyle right.

"I agree with you Cartman! I don't think Dracula's a vampire," came a cheerful voice, spoken in a British accent.

Cartman gawked at Pip, then shifted his gaze to Dracula, and finally back to Kyle. "You know something Kyle, about that Dracula kid,"

"Yeah?" the redhead raised an eyebrow.

"I think he might be a vampire."

ooo

Garrison, in fact, had not been eaten. The teacher had merely been the victim of a car that decided it wasn't going to listen to her anymore. Usually, a disobedient car was annoying in itself, but her car had been very vocal in its rebellion. To be precise, it had called her foul names, opened its doors, flung her into the snow, and drove off at top speed in pursuit of a cute Volkswagen Beetle.

In a small town, no point A is out of walking distance from point B. Mrs. Garrison could easily have walked to school and still arrived on time. However, she was determined to get revenge on her mutinous automobile. After an elaborate plan involving music, a large magnet, a trash compactor, ten tons of dynamite, and a wad of chewing gum, she arrived at the school, still determined to prove that nothing particularly out of the ordinary was occurring in her peaceful mountain town. The angry transsexual entered the classroom moments after Cartman's breathtaking realization to begin the day's history lesson.

"All right you little retards, today we're going to be talking about the American Revolution." The class "awwed" in unison.

"It looks like somebody's pissed in Garrison's Cheerios again," Cartman whispered to his friends from his usual seat, warranting some giggles.

"Is there something you'd like to say Eric?"

"Oh no, Mrs. Garrison," he replied angelically.

"Then perhaps you can tell me the date the Declaration of Independence was signed?"

"Oh, I know this one!" he exclaimed with certainty.

There were several children in Garrison's class that, for whatever reason were not paying her history lesson any attention. However, one child that was far more inattentive than the rest. His name was Tweek, and right now he was in fear for his life. Wendy Testaburger's eyes, although concealed by her raven hair, were fixed hungrily on the caffeine addict. The two had been engaged in an intense staring contest for the majority of the morning, and the less possessed of the two was beginning to lose his mind.

"Mrs. Garrison!" he exclaimed out of the blue, effectively interrupting the teacher's argument with Cartman over the combating countries of the American Revolution. Cartman insisted that America was fighting for its freedom from France.

The teacher's eyes shot to the twitching blond form of Tweek. "What do you want?"

"Ngh. It's Wendy!" he cried. "I think she wants to eat me!"

"And this class, is _why_ we don't watch horror movies. It puts retarded ideas into your brains, which already have a very limited capacity. Now as I was saying, during the American Revolution, America was fighting for its freedom from England and its oppressive laws and taxes."

Tweek was upset at how little notice his plight received. Wendy, who had never paid him any particular attention before, was now staring at him as if she wanted to devour his flesh. What else was he supposed to think. Still, Stan had said that there was nothing wrong with Wendy when she walked into the classroom that morning, hadn't he? The dark haired boy was certainly more informed about the current situation than he. The blond would just have to trust him.

Wait. Did Wendy just get up from her seat? Tweek jumped in his desk with a very vocal "Gah!"

"Now what is it Tweek?"

"Wendy's walking towards me! Oh my God! She's gonna eat me!" he screamed hysterically.

"Oh shut up Tweek!" the teacher reprimanded. "Wendy's not going to eat you. And Wendy, you get back to your seat." The dark haired girl obeyed. "Now where was I? Oh yes," she continued with her lecture.

All right. Everything was fine. So long as Wendy remained where she– oh God! She was plodding towards him again, making a low clicking sound. The caffeine addict began shaking more than was usual for him.

"Mrs. Garrison! She's trying to eat me again!"

"That's nice Tweek," the teacher said, without turning from the chalkboard. "Now who can tell me about the Articles of Confederation?"

Tweek didn't know what to do. Here was Wendy, only a few feet away, clicking and plodding like any typical undead, demonic little girl. The other students were watching him with wide, frightened eyes, but none of them were brave enough to protect him. Mrs. Garrison, the only one who might have been able to provide aid, was currently ignoring the poor, jittery child. There was no escaping the fate Wendy, or more specifically, the creature possessing Wendy, had in mind for him. The boy let out one final "gah!" before she pounced on him, doing whatever it was that those undead girls did to kill their victims.

One little girl had screamed "Eww, gross!" as bits of Tweek flew about the classroom. It was this exclamation that inevitably caused the irresponsible teacher to turn around and behold the gruesome state her classroom was in. Wendy was on poor little Tweek. Her face was buried in his flesh; she was presumably eating him. Limbs, among other things were being flung across the room. Stan Marsh, never having possessed a strong stomach, had released its contents on its desk, and Mrs. Garrison was tempted to do the same.

"Ahh, Wendy! Now that's disgusting!" The girl looked up, bloody face meeting her teacher's disgusted gaze. "Honestly, if you're gonna eat your classmates, do it in the hall where I don't have to see it!"

Wendy gazed around the classroom, presumably noticing the gruesome picture she had created. She shrugged and dragged her fresh corpse out of the room.

"There, that's much better," Garrison muttered, repulsed. "Now where the Hell was I?" she pondered.

"Mr. Garrison?" Craig said shakily, forgetting momentarily about his teacher's sex change.

"Oh for the love Craig, now what is it?"

"Don't you care?"

"Care? What? What the Hell are you rambling about now?" she cried, fed up with the interruptions. Did none of these kids care about history?

"Wendy just ate Tweek. Don't you care?"

"Craig, if you're going to speak nonsense, you know where you can go."

"Okay," he muttered, hopping out of his desk and, as per custom, gave his teacher the finger. He preferred the councillor's office anyway. "I was just wondering." At that, he marched out of the classroom, to his usual destination.

"Holy shit!" Kyle exclaimed. "He just went out into the hall with that psycho!"

"Oh my God!" Stan cried. "He's right!"

"What if she comes after one of us next?" another student wailed. Cartman, never having been one to sit around and wait peacefully for his demise, stood up and began pushing desks against the door.

"Cartman, what are you doing?" Stan asked, still scared out of his mind, but curious.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he asked sarcastically. "I'm building a barricade. I'm not about to become lunch for Wendy of all people, because I hate her," he stated with resolve.

"Cartman, for once you're saying something that makes sense!" Kyle said, before joining him in the construction of the desk wall. Stan and Kenny were quick to follow. Unfortunately, Mrs. Garrison was less than pleased with the current situation.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked accusingly.

"Weren't you listening? We're building a barricade," Cartman restated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Not during my history lesson you're not."

"But Mrs. Garrison," Stan cried, "Wendy's acting really weird today. If we don't do something, she'll come back in and eat somebody else."

"You can build your stupid wall on someone else's time, now get back to your seats!" She stared at the desk-barricade. "After you put them back."

"Mrs. Garrison wants us all dead! She's being possessed by some evil spirit like Wendy! She's gonna kill us! We gotta get out of here!" Utter hysteria broke out in the classroom at Clyde's accusation. The students ran in every direction, screaming as they went. Some tried adding their seat to Cartman's barricade. Others ran towards the window, looking for a way of escape. Still others pressed themselves against the back wall of the classroom, huddled together in terror. In the ensuing chaos, Kenny McCormick was trampled to death.

From by the door, a shout of "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!" was heard. It was accompanied by a "You Bastards!" from a desk by the window.

The teacher stared at the panic-stricken room in shock. She had seen a lot in her years living in South Park, but never before had she seen her students react to a situation like this. Garrison, for once, had no idea what to do.

It was fortunate for her that Wendy chose that moment to phase through the door, causing the other children to immediately press themselves against the opposite wall, as if she were a cat and they, cornered mice. However, there was once again something markedly different about the little girl's appearance. She appeared, well, normal. Her hair was tucked back behind her ears as usual, and she had even rematerialized her pink beret.

"Err, hi guys," she greeted in her normal voice.

"Wendy? Is that you?" Stan asked warily.

"Um, yes. Why are you all over there? And," she stared at the desks around her, "why are all the desks against the door?" She took a step towards the other students.

"Stay back!" Cartman cried, raising an accusing finger. She stopped. "You're not fooling anyone with the 'normal' routine! You just ate Tweek, and now you're after one of us!" The kids on the wall screamed for added effect.

"What are you talking about?" she asked over the cries of terror. "I just got here!" The other students all exchanged glances, the exclamation having shut them up.

"Hold on one sec Wendy," Stan said, holding up a pacifying hand.

From her spot by the teacher's desk, Mrs. Garrison stood impatiently with her hands on her hips. She figured it was best to just let the other kids get whatever was in their system out on their own.

"What do you think guys," the boy in the red poof-ball hat questioned his friends. "It's possible that someone that just looks like Wendy came in and did all of that other stuff."

"Stan!" Kyle reprimanded.

"Anything's possible," he replied, defensively.

"Okay, seriously," Cartman growled. "You guys have been all 'survival' all morning, and then you're all eager to accept Wendy, who I might add, just ate Tweek in front of the whole class, back into your little 'survival group' because you," he pointed an accusing finger at Stan, "still have a crush on her!"

"But it might not have been her that did all that stuff!" the boy protested.

"You know, the funny thing about 'mights' in horror movies is that they usually don't work in your favor. She _might_ not be possessed by an evil monster, but are you really willing to risk it?"

"He's right Stan," Kyle said rationally, placing a comforting hand on his best friend's shoulder. "As much as I hate to admit it, after what we just saw, there's a good chance that she is possessed. I don't want to see you to die because of something stupid like that."

Stan looked like he was fighting an internal battle, and losing. He shook his head. "I'm sorry Kyle, I believe in Wendy." He walked to the center of the room to meet the lonely little girl. "It's all good," he said, reassuringly. Wendy looked less than convinced.

The other students watched their fellow classmate in horror, waiting for the girl to literally bite his head off. When nothing happened, they began to approach cautiously. Perhaps Stan was right after all. Cartman and Kyle, still pressed up against the back wall, were the only kids in the class that remained wary of Wendy. The two exchanged glances.

"What, you're not gonna join your little boyfriend?"

"Shut up Fatass!" Kyle screamed, punching Cartman in the shoulder before joining Stan (making sure that the darker haired boy was between him and Wendy of course). The overweight bigot stared after Kyle, his eyes full of tears.

"Ah! That hurt you bitch!" he yelled after the other boy. "All right, you just go over there! I thought I meant something to you! I see how it is!"

"Cartman, what the Hell are you talking about?" Kyle stared at him with a ridiculing glare. Cartman glared right back.

"All right, if we're all done here," Mrs. Garrison interrupted, raising her voice, "you brats can all put your desks back, and we're going to learn some history dammit!"

ooo

Recess came, and all of the children were a bit less shaken up over the events in the classroom that morning. By now, most were even willing to approach Wendy, albeit very cautiously. This was good, as with the increased deaths lately, the politically active little girl was ready to give some guidelines for the students, to help them stay alive longer. A fairly decent-sized crowd had gathered around her, including The Smart Ones.

"We all know," she declared, "that it's best to never be caught alone. Therefore, I have a proposition to make." The crowd looked on expectantly. "I believe that it would be best if each of us were to choose someone to remain with at all times. An 'exit buddy' if you will. That way, you're slightly safer in the event of an attack."

"That idea doesn't sound half-bad," commented Clyde.

"Right," she reiterated. "So everybody pair up." The kids did as they were told. Soon the students were all standing in groups of two. There were Stan and Kyle, Craig and Clyde, Timmy and Jimmy, Pip and Dracula, Kevin and Esther, Lola and Mandy, Millie and Nellie, and Red and Heidi. Wendy, having expected Stan to choose her, was slightly annoyed, but eyed the crowd for whoever was left. She was a little more than dismayed to see that Cartman was all that remained.

"Well I guess it's you and me," she commented, determined to make the most of the situation.

"Oh no." Cartman exclaimed, taking a step back as if Wendy were a talking, man-eating plant. "Nononononononono! Hippies like you are bad enough on their own, but I'm not crazy enough to be 'exit buddies' with a hippy that is also likely to eat me!"

"C'mon Cartman. You can't possibly wander around alone!" she wheedled.

"Screw you, Bitch. Kenny will be my meat shield when he gets back, and until then Clyde Frog's gonna be my exit buddy," he stated, holding up his prized stuffed animal. Wendy looked at the toy, daunted. She approached Stan, the only one who had trusted her upon her return. Perhaps he would reconsider his choice?

"Stan?"

"Yeah Wendy?"

"You wouldn't consider being _my_ exit buddy, would you?" She looked hopeful.

"What? Err, sorry Wendy. It's nothing against you, it's just–well, you're a girl." He said it as if it were the most natural explanation.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with everything," he responded. "Besides, Kyle's my exit buddy. And I'm already spending the night at his house, so it makes sense."

"Fine, fine! Whatever Stan, I don't care!" the girl cried, feeling betrayed.

"You two sound like my parents." Kyle's comment earned him a glare from Wendy before she stalked off, growling about a number of things, most of which involved boys. "I wonder what her problem is," he muttered.

"Who knows? Girls are dumb," Stan replied.

ooo

Bill, Terrance, and Fosse were the three boys at South Park Elementary that proudly claimed rivalry with Stan's group. Sure, occasionally Craig and Those Guys stole their title, but as far as the brats were concerned, it had been theirs first, and therefor always. Incidentally, they had been in the small group of fourth graders that hadn't been present at Wendy's speech. They were currently sitting at the edge of the playground, throwing snowballs at each other.

Suddenly, and without warning, a huge beast, remotely resembling a cross between a lion, a monkey and a turtle with exactly ten pairs of buttocks leapt over the wall and, in one swift motion, swept up and devoured all three boys. The remainder of the children on the playground looked at the monster and screamed.

"Oh my God! What is that?" Stan exclaimed in terror.

"Let's get out of here dude!" Kyle cried, and the boys, followed by the remainder of the playground ran inside. So ended recess.

ooo

Shelly sighed as she headed towards the front door, wondering who could be visiting at this late hour. Oh well, perhaps it would bring some excitement to her evening. As much as she hated her little brother, she had to admit, it was rather dull without him around to pick on. She opened they door, and stared at the guest, irritated.

"Shelly, who is it?" Mrs. Marsh called from the kitchen.

"Just some stupid turd," she replied. The thirteen year old changed her focus to the kid at the door. "What do you want Turd?" she spat. She had not been expecting the "turd" to pull a gun on her.

A shot rang out in the Marsh residence, followed by another, and another. There was an "Oh thank God! Finally, do you know how long I've been waiting for this?" before the last shot rang out. After that, the house was silent as the grave.

* * *

I swear I'm going to kill Mrs. Garrison. When I don't pay enough attention, I always revert to calling her a him. I guess she will always be Mr. Garrison in my heart. I hope I don't procrastinate too much on the next chapter. Finally, reviews (and reviewers) are eternally loved!


	6. Fun With Chainsaws

Ugh, I don't know why I'm still doing this. My writing is so horrible. It's really disheartening. Anywho, here's the super long chapter six! Forget Cartman, Kyle's the one that's hard to write. Stan's tough too. I'll finish this at some point. It's more than halfway there.

Can you tell that I like Craig and Clyde much?

* * *

Friday morning: the students of Mrs. Garrison's fourth grade class were still scared out of their fragile little minds. Nerves had been tried all week, but the arrival of the "ten-assed monster" had been the straw to break the camel's back, as it were. Naturally, it was the number one subject amongst the children. Even the normally carefree adults were concerned.

"Today class, they want me to talk to you about the 'monster' that ate your stupid little classmates Bill, Terrance, and Fosse yesterday." Mrs. Garrison may very well have been the only person in town that frankly didn't give a damn. "But I don't particularly care, so we're going to talk about something else," she trailed off.

"What? You can't do that!" cried Wendy.

"Yeah! We have a right to know, since our lives are at stake," Clyde added.

"Ugh," the teacher shook her balding head. "Is there really anything to tell? It was a ten-assed creature from the depths of Hell that probably leads a miserable existence writhing in its own wicked feces. On the bright side, now that we know why everyone's gone missing, maybe you'll all shut up about it now."

"What the–the hippie's the murderer! She ate Tweek yesterday!" Cartman interjected. Wendy shot him a dirty look.

"But I thought the murderer was Dracula?" Stan reminded at the same time. The vampire seemed not to notice.

"What? No!" Garrison slapped her palm to her forehead. "I just told you little wise-asses, the Hell-fiend killed everyone," she said with resolve. A brief argument ensued between the students and the teacher–a pointless effort as Mrs. Garrison had both the advantages of obstinacy and authority.

Through the scuffle, Kyle remained in his desk, lost in thought. Cogs were turning in his nine-year old mind. Between the comments of the transsexual teacher, Cartman, and Stan, things were starting to click. "Maybe," he began after Mrs. Garrison had ended the argument by demanding that her students 'shut the Hell up,' "there's more than one killer." He was certain deep down that he was right.

"No Kyle, there isn't," the teacher said, angry that she was still on this topic of conversation. "If there's any killer, then it's Ten Asses."

"Yeah," Wendy piped up. "There's only ever one killer. It gets too complicated otherwise. If there _is_ more than one," she added thoughtfully, "then they're always working for some mastermind."

The class fell into a speculative silence. Garrison, assuming that the conversation was over, began writing new vocabulary on the board. This week included words like "alleviate," "conscientious," and "prestidigitation." She, however, was mistaken in her assumption. Moments after hearing Wendy's comment, every child in the classroom achieved the same realization.

Stan was the first to voice the name on everyone's minds. "Mephesto." Everyone knew that the man was a nut. He was always working in his creepy lab, dealing with genetic experiments and trying to play God in general. Furthermore, he was notorious for his love of giving his scientific creations multiple pairs of buttocks. However, before anyone was able to comment, Mr. Mackey burst into the room.

"I need to speak with Stan Marsh right away, m'kay." He sounded downright frantic, which, in light of recent events could only mean that somebody had been killed. The students stared blankly at their councillor; the boy in question exchanged a look with his best friend before hopping out of his desk and approaching the man with the inflated head. Garrison looked on in annoyance.

The two shared a brief, hushed conversation which ended when the councillor solemnly exited the room. Stan remained motionless for a second, a horrified expression plastered on his face. Then, to the great disgust of his fellow classmates (and teacher), he retched all over the classroom floor, and dazedly fled from the classroom. A very worried Kyle followed moments later.

"All right class," Mrs. Garrison continued as if there had been no interruption. "Who can tell me the meaning of 'blight?'"

ooo

The class continued on relatively normally, but had anyone been paying attention to Wendy Testaburger, they would have noticed that she was going through a few changes. Her beret had fallen off of her head, and her dark hair was now covering her eyes. She stared hungrily at Jimmy Vulmer a few seats away. Without a sound, the possessed child stood up and began hobbling in his direction.

Fortunately for the crippled boy, he saw her before she reached him. From under his desk he pulled out a can of Acme Undead Repellent, pulled off the lid, pointed it in Wendy's direction, and pulled the trigger.

The girl released a screech that would make a banshee proud and stumbled back several feet. This warranted the attention of the rest of the class, as well as one teacher who was quickly becoming fed up with interruptions.

"Jimmy, don't spray things at the other students! Wendy, stay in your seat!" she demanded. Both children gazed wide-eyed at their teacher before doing as she instructed.

ooo

The scene in the hall was of a much more sombre nature. Upon hearing Mr. Mackey's dreadful news, Stan had fled the classroom in a daze, almost shutting the door on Kyle on his way out. He had stumbled a few steps in the direction of his locker when Kyle's voice reached him.

"Stan?" he asked with concern. "What's wrong dude?" He had a feeling he knew what the answer would be, but he hoped for the best.

The other boy answered, on the verge of tears. "Last night, someone broke into my house and killed my parents, and Shelly, a-and Grandpa." Stan's voice wavered as he spoke. He leaned his forehead against a locker. "Why? Why'd it have to happen? They may not have been the smartest parents in the world, and Shelly wasn't a very nice sister, and Grandpa–well he probably wanted it, but they shouldn't have died like that? What am I gonna do?"

Kyle was speechless. It really hurt to see his best friend like this. He put a consoling hand on Stan's shoulder. "I'm sorry Stan." There was a moment of sorrowful silence. "Listen, um, if you need me for anything, I'm here for you," he said after a few moments, trying to remain strong.

The boy in the red poof-ball hat turned around and fell into his friend arms, letting out a few choked sobs, and earning a bemused look from a third grader on his way to the bathroom. The redhead patted his friend on the back; they remained like that for quite awhile.

Stan took a step back. "Thanks, I needed that," he choked.

"Anytime."

"Mephesto's the one behind this," the dark-haired boy said, his expression becoming ominous. "We gotta stop him right away." There was a distinctly resolute quality to his voice.

Kyle nodded in agreement. "Yeah."

"I'm gonna make him pay for what he did!" It wasn't very often that Stan got angry, but when he did, he was vicious. At that moment, the boy looked like he was out for blood.

"We'll do it right after school. I'll get the other guys to come too. We're gonna stop this stupid 'South Park killing spree' and do everything in our power to make things go back to the way they were," Kyle said, more determined than angry. It seemed that everyone relied on him to be the pillar of strength in situations that required condolence. Kenny's death had been a prime example of this. He had single-handedly offered solace to a terminally ill Kenny, a frightened Stan, and even Cartman. He wasn't about to show Stan how afraid this situation had made him. In all honesty, he wanted to cry too.

"Why don't we take you to the nurse's office," he suggested. "You should probably lie down for awhile." Stan grunted an unintelligible reply, but began walking in that direction nonetheless. Kyle followed on his heels.

ooo

Around 4:00 that afternoon, what remained of The Smart Ones stared apprehensively through the front gates of Dr. Mephesto's laboratory. This included Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, Clyde, Jimmy, and Wendy (who was there at Stan's insistence). There had been a debate on whether venturing to the source of South Park's problems was a good idea, but Wendy pointed out that the people who got in on the action somehow tended to have better chances of survival. After that, no one objected to tagging along. Stan didn't care one way or another. He just wanted revenge on the man that had taken away his family.

A boy in a blue, floppy-eared hat leisurely strolled up to the rest of the group.

"It took you long enough Craig," Cartman accused, earning him the finger. "Ay!"

"Though you gotta admit, now really isn't the time to be watching Red Racer," Clyde added thoughtfully.

"I always watch Red Racer," Craig said with finality.

"Well, l-let's get this o-ov– let's get this over with," Jimmy commented, opening the front gate. The eight children, all huddled tightly together, moved into the looming mansion on the hill.

The interior was unchanged from Stan's last visit. It appeared to have walked off of a Hollywood set for a Frankenstein movie. One wall was lined with musty, dusty books, all of which were at least three inches thick. Most were on genetic engineering. Another wall was home to several empty cages, no doubt belonging to failed experiments. The air in the poorly-lit room was dank and moldy. It gave Stan an overwhelming urge to vomit, but that was hardly abnormal. The third wall was twice the length of the other two; there were three corridors embedded in it, equally dark and foreboding. Not one member of the oddball group was familiar enough with Mephesto's home to know to which destination each hallway led.

The Smart Ones felt diminutive as they stared into the darkness, unsure of their next move. The eight remained in their positions by the doorway for an what seemed like an eternity. They were silent and unmoving. It was Stan to make the first move. He took a step towards the left corridor. "I'm going this way," he said before venturing onward.

"Wait Stan! It's dangerous to go off alone!" Kyle called after him. Stan pressed onward. By this point, everyone knew that splitting up was a surefire way to wind up dead, and Kyle, not wanting the same fate to befall his friend followed him. Though not as safe as eight, two still provided more security than one.

The remaining children exchanged glances. "Well, now w-what?" Jimmy asked, voicing the question on everyone's minds. Cartman saw a chance for authority and took it.

"We'll split up into three groups. Two of 'em can go down the other halls, and the third can wait here in case we need to make a quick escape."

"That's a stupid idea Cartman!" Wendy exclaimed. "Everyone knows there's safety in numbers, we should stay with the group."

"And waste time traveling down each hall individually? I think not," he responded.

"It's better than dying."

The others looked on at the power struggle, none having any desire to join in. After all, this was Cartman. Wendy may not have minded having her parents fed to her, but the other four were none to keen on cannibalism. Craig, Clyde, and Jimmy all exchanged glances. Kenny sighed impatiently.

"Whatever. Screw you bitch! Kenny and I are going over nyah," he motioned towards the rightmost corridor. "You can do whatever you want, but you'll probably die. In fact, I hope you do." Kenny seemed less than happy to be spoken for by the overweight bigot, but he followed him into the darkness nonetheless. If any there was any chance for survival, then it would probably be obtained by sticking with Cartman. Kenny suspected that even the undead would think twice before crossing him.

"Well, I guess the four of us will take the middle corridor," Wendy muttered. The remaining children began to walk into the final hallway, Craig and Clyde several paces ahead of Wendy and Jimmy. Several paces, unfortunately was enough to put the two boys into the corridor as three metal gates simultaneously slammed down, blocking off the entrances to all of the halls, and effectively separating Wendy and Jimmy from the rest of the group.

"Oh for the love–God damn it!" came the frustrated cry of the little girl in the pink hat.

ooo

Down the right corridor Kenny and Cartman had come upon a less than pleasant discovery. Here was a room full of cages, and within' the cages were, naturally, lab experiments. Upon further inspection, they appeared to be failed lab experiments. Failures or prototypes anyway. Each looked as if it might have been the initial design for old Ten Asses.

In one cage was a turtle with five pairs of buttocks crossed with a monkey, also possessing multiple pairs of buttocks. The result was a creature with the face of the primate, the shell of the reptile, no limbs, and eight asses. It appeared to be in pain.

In another cage was a two-assed lion that may have been an attempted crossover with the previous abomination. Its eyes glowed a dull red, and it snarled hungrily at Cartman, who did the only logical thing to do: beat it with a conveniently placed stick. "That's a bad abomination to God. Bad! Respect my authoritah!"

Kenny mumbled reproachfully at his default friend. He however did not notice how dangerously close he was to one of the failed prototypes. At the sound of growling from behind him, the parka-clad nine year old jumped, barely missing the perilous clutches of a creature with the face and feet of a pig, the chest of a man, and the arms of a bear (with three asses) snapped at him through the bars of its cage. He shouted something that may have been "holy shit dude!" before hiding behind his larger friend.

"Damn Kenny, you're such a pussy."

The boy in the orange parka begged to differ. He just didn't like dying all the time. As he backed away from Cartman, he wound up running right into another cage. A slimy hand fell on his shoulder. Sensing the end was near (again), Kenny McCormick screamed and prepared for death. He only prayed that it would be painless in this instance. It didn't come. The nine year old turned around to see the cause of his alarm.

"Kill me," came the pained, raspy voice of what looked like the mutant that was genetically closest to the murderous monster. It sported nine whole pairs of buttocks. It also smelled like a wet dog that had been rolling in fecal matter. Kenny took several steps back.

As his 'meat shield' was having adventures with the genetic experiments, Cartman was beginning to notice something in the corner that not only looked mildly out of place, but incredibly useful. Lying next to the door the boys had entered the room from was one shiny, new chainsaw. This was perfect. Weapons were always a plus when entering potentially life-threatening situations, and as far as weapons in this genre go, it's hard to beat the chainsaw. Cartman couldn't resist the temptation. He grabbed the weapon and, as if possessed, it magically sprang to life.

Kenny turned startledly when the revving of the chainsaw reached his ears. "Mmmph!" he exclaimed, muffled voice full of excitement. Now he not only had Cartman as a meat shield, but a potential bodyguard. His incoherent speech became a bit more concerned as his 'best friend' began hacking up the prototypes.

Blood and limbs flew across the room, accompanied by the war cries of the obese nine year old. The manbearpig's left paw flew into Kenny's head where it miraculously remained. Appendages fell at the blond boy's feet, and the red fluids that splattered him caused the child to look almost like one of the monsters Eric was currently putting out of its misery. Unfortunately, the boy in the red coat was so hyped-up with his slaughterfest, that he mistook Kenny for one of the creatures he was eradicating. He realized his mistake too late.

"Oops," he said unconvincingly as bits of Kenny flew across the room. The chainsaw shut itself off. The now solitary boy glanced around the room at the mess he had made. He noticed another door leading out of the room to the left. "Oh, what the hell?" he said to himself as he exited through the new passageway. As the door shut and locked itself behind him, Cartman jumped. When some familiar screams were heard from down the hall, the boy panicked momentarily. He shook his head moments later. "Let's go show those guys that you're no pussy." He revved his new chainsaw and began down the hallway.

ooo

At the end of another corridor Craig and Clyde found themselves at a dead end. The two sighed in unison. They had realized fairly quickly that they had lost Wendy and Jimmy, and after trying to find a way out through their initial entrance, the boys had given up and journeyed down the hall, defeated. The path had forked a ways back, and not wanting to split up, the leftmost of the two paths had been taken. The decision was now being regretted.

"See Craig, I told you we should've gone right!" Clyde criticized in a nasally voice.

The other boy flipped his friend the bird. "No you didn't, we flipped a coin, remember?" he responded in an equally nasally and slightly more accusing voice. The boys stared at each other in confrontation for a moment before Clyde broke down.

"Fine, fine! Maybe we did do that," he admitted. Craig, though not even on the same planet as Cartman where cunning was concerned, could still be mean when he wanted to be, and since learning martial arts to battle Tweek, had become quite the fighter. Clyde was none too eager to get his ass handed to him. "Let's just go back to the fork and take the other path."

"Okay," Craig agreed. He was a fairly simple minded boy. The two made their was back down the hall.

What the boys did not notice as they walked, were the occasional loose stones in the floor that they had miraculously avoided on their previous passing, and probably would disappear when their purpose was served. This time Craig and Clyde were not so lucky. The boy in the red coat stepped on one of these stones, causing it to sink into the floor. He jumped back.

"Woah that was close!" He had spoken too soon. No sooner than the words had flown from his mouth, a trap was sprung, entangling the fourth grade boys in a net that dangled from the ceiling.

Craig turned to glare at his friend, and gave him his signature finger. "Well this sucks," he stated, an accusatory tone in his voice. The boy in the blue had was not happy.

"I'm sorry!" Clyde apologized. He was beginning to think that coming here had been a bad idea. It was about to get worse.

They sat dejectedly in the net, hoping that somebody would come to help them out soon. Clyde's head suddenly shot up. "Craig?"

"Yes?"

"Is that you purring?"

"What?"

"That purring noise," Clyde pointed out, holding a finger for the other boy to shush. A deep rumbling sound, not entirely different from the purr of a lion or tiger could distinctly be heard. The two boys turned towards the sound, and instantly jumped into each other's arms, terror on both of their faces. Before them stood old Ten Asses himself, and he was beginning to draw closer to the children, licking his lips hungrily. The two let out a simultaneous cry of terror. They knew they were going to die.

ooo

Down the leftmost hallway and up two flights of stairs Stan and Kyle had traveled so far without incident. The hero's ability to survive (until the end of the story at least) is never to be underestimated. Now the two boys stood before a vast, mahogany door, a goblin carved into the frame to make it all the more menacing.

Kyle was slightly hesitant to proceed. In fact, he had been hesitant the entire way up. Without Stan's blind rage, the Jewish boy had all the room in the world for reason, and all the reasoning in the world was telling him that he didn't want to see whatever was behind door number one.

Stan on the other hand, had none of his best friends qualms. He wanted revenge, and, having a one track mind, had no room for second thoughts. He flung the door open and raced inside, Kyle following cautiously, a few steps behind. Fortunately for Kyle, his fears would not be realized. At least not this time.

Sitting in a dark corner was none other than the madman himself: Doctor Mephesto. Nine year old Stan charged at him, without any idea as to what he was going to do to this man to avenge his family, especially considering his unarmed state. He was not thinking about that. In fact, he was not thinking about much of anything. Even Kyle's cries for him to stop fell on deaf ears. It was when the boy was close enough to see the scientist's face that he halted, the world around him springing back into existence. This man, the alleged mastermind behind the murders, was crying.

"W-what's wrong?" Stan asked, confused.

"It's gone beyond my power. It has taken my son." At that, Mephesto pulled a gun on Stan, who instinctively froze, eyes wide. "Back up," the aging man ordered. Stan complied. "Now stop," he commanded when the dark-haired boy was standing next to his friend.

"It was a brilliant scheme," Mephesto began, his voice possessing an unstable edge to it. Stan and Kyle exchanged knowing looks. Here came the 'why/how I did it' story. "Human beings are such imperfect creatures. We are weak and self-centered, and we have only one ass. Scientifically, we are inferior. It was my desire to earn the Nobel prize by creating an ultimate lifeform. I had no idea what I'd be getting myself into when I started.

"At first it was simple enough. Combining creatures was right up my alley. First I tried crossing a man, a bear, and a pig, and of course increased the number of asses at the same time. The experiment was initially a success, however, Bearpigman, as I dubbed it, was violent and killed my dear assistant Kevin. I locked it up. I retried the experiment with several other creatures, each time obtaining a result that was flawed in some way. Then at long last I finally did it. I achieved my dream. I created a being with ten asses.

"In its early days, the creature responded fairly well, and I marked the experiment off as a success. Later I found that I had overlooked something in an effort to perfect my creation. As a flawless entity, it could not tolerate sinners, or, more specifically, sinners in the horror movie world. It managed to escape from its cage one day, and that's when the murders about town began.

"Yesterday however, I received news that it had attacked the school, and that my beloved Terrance was one of its casualties. I–I don't know how to live with myself!" The mad scientist broke into sobs. "I've killed my own son!"

The boys stared at Mephesto in shock. Kyle was the first to speak up. "Dude, why are you telling us this?"

"Why?" the elder replied. "I need to share my story before I kill myself in penitence."

"Wait," Stan jumped in. "So _you _weren't behind the vampire or Wendy's possession?"

"What are you talking about? Vampires? Possession? Such things are only make believe. Nothing more." He raised the gun to his head.

"Wait!" Kyle pleaded, taking a step forward. Mephesto turned the gun instead on him. The redhead froze, but continued with his proposal. "Could you at least tell us how to kill the thing before killing yourself?"

The mad scientist grinned as only a mad scientist could and said, "It is a perfect being. There is no way to kill it."

"Dude, this is pretty fucked up right here."

ooo

Elsewhere, Craig and Clyde were holding onto each other for dear life. The hideous monster took a step closer, saliva dripping from its great fangs. It took another step, and another. It ran its long, blue tongue down the net-rope prison, tasting its prey. The boys, mildly disgusted were resigned to their fate.

"Well, it's been great. Good bye Clyde," Craig muttered fairly calmly given the circumstances.

"Good bye Craig," Clyde on the other hand, was crying. The beast opened its ugly mouth, ready for a feast. Instead it let out a pained scream as one of its ten pairs of buttocks was sliced off by a little boy wielding a chainsaw. It leapt to the other side of the room, rolling on the ground in pain. The unfortunate boys in the net turned their heads to look at their savior. They were less than thrilled to find Cartman, at least Craig was. It was no secret that he hated the fat bigot.

Despite all that the larger boy had done, Clyde had no problem with Eric. In fact, he looked up to him. It took guts to be 'the fat kid.' When, in Cartman's absence, the boys needed a new fat kid, Clyde realized that he lacked those guts. Since then, he tended to silently root for the other boy. He decided to make the most of their good fortune. "You have wonderful timing Cartman! Good thing you were there to save us right then. Craig and I thought we were dead for sure." Craig frowned at the comment and flipped both boys off. "Anyway, do you think you could get us down?"

"Hmm," the boy stroked his double chin in ponderous thought. "That depends."

"Dammit Cartman, this isn't funny!" Craig snapped. He really hated the guy.

"Craig, you really should use a kinder tone." The other boy blinked, and again flipped Eric the bird. Cartman's eyes narrowed momentarily, but he quickly shifted to a more serene expression. The bastard was planning something. "You see," he continued, "I essentially hold your lives in my hands right now."

"What?" Clyde exclaimed. He really wished he had the balls to behave in the way that Cartman currently was. No one would mess with him.

"I could let you down and finish off the monster," he said sweetly, "but there really isn't anything in it for me. I could just as easily leave you here for the monster to eat.

"What do you want?" Craig muttered, obviously displeased.

"Craig, Craig, Craig," the larger boy chastised. "If your gonna talk like that, I'll have to leave you to the monster." The boys trapped in the confines of the net exchanged glances. As they spoke, the monster was beginning to recover from the shock of only having nine pairs of buttocks.

Craig saw this. Clyde saw this. Neither were eager to spend any more time in the room. "We'll do anything you want Cartman," Clyde offered nervously.

The boy in the sky blue hat pondered this. "I want Craig to tell me that I'm his favorite person in the world, and that he wants to grow up to be a wonderful, intelligent person just like me. Oh and you gotta say it like you mean it." Cartman smiled expectantly at the boy in the floppy-eared hat.

"I'm not saying that," he asserted. The monster began crawling to its feet.

"All right, if Craig's not gonna play along, I'll just take my chainsaw and go elsewhere." He turned to leave.

Craig eyed the rapidly recovering monster. "All right, all right! Cartman?"

"Yes?" he replied, batting his eyes. This caused the other boy to hesitate in disgust. "Well?"

After a long moment of silence, he finally choked out with as much sincerity as he could muster, "You're my favorite person in the world. When I grow up, I want to be wonderful and intelligent, just like you." He was beginning to feel mildly nauseous.

"Very good Craig." By now the monster had regained its footing, and was quickly approaching Cartman. Surprisingly, the fat child was quicker than the wounded monster and reached its backside, successfully removing another pair of buttocks in the process. Eight Asses, formerly known as Ten Asses, again recoiled and collapsed in the corner, screaming in agony.

Eric Cartman grinned at his classmates. He loved having people at his mercy. He still had eight asses to hack off. If he could get a blackmail act from the other boys for each, then this would certainly be a fun night.

ooo

On the third floor Stan and Kyle were trying, not without difficulty to wheedle information about the creature out of Mephesto. He was a strong adversary. He also had a gun. The heroes, as is frequently the case, were at a distinct disadvantage.

"Please," Kyle begged, "you know you want to avenge your son's death. We want revenge on that creature too, please. Anything will help."

"Anything, eh?" Mephesto turned the thought over in its head. "I _am _getting tired of speaking with you. I'll tell you this much. The monster may have had one weakness."

"Which is?" the boy in the orange jacket pressed.

"You'll never know! It may have taken my child, but I could never destroy such a perfect creature!" He pointed the gun at the children and fired.

Moments later, Stan opened his eyes, surprised that he was still alive. Wait! If Stan had survived, then that meant . . . He looked toward his best friend, fearing the worst. He was relieved to find Kyle blinking back at him in confusion. Both apparently had the same thought. If neither of them had been shot then . . .

"Hahah!" the aging man laughed. "Scared you didn't I? No, this particular gun isn't loaded. I don't want to die in such a way."

Stan and Kyle sat down. This was too much for one day, even by South Park standards.

"Well, aren't you going to ask me?"

"Ask you what?" Stan muttered tiredly.

"How I _do_ want to die," the scientist replied.

"No, not really." Kyle spoke that time.

"What?"

"Yeah, we don't really care," the darker haired boy pointed out. He had a feeling they were about to find out anyway. In his nine years of existence, he had discovered that most people took "we don't care" to mean "please tell me, I have to know!" Why were adults so dumb?

"When I die," Mephesto began. Stan had, of course been right. "I want my work to go with me. I have planted a bomb in this laboratory." Both boys jumped up at this. "All traces of my existence will go with me." The madman backed towards the window. "I of course, shall go first. No! Don't try to stop me!"

"Dude!" Kyle exclaimed. It seemed to be the only word to properly sum up the situation.

"Nope, stay where you are. I'm jumping!"

"I don't think I wanna look," Stan muttered. Both boys averted their eyes.

"All right! I told you I'd do it. Have fun escaping my laboratory in the next twenty minutes, which is when the bomb will blow this lab, and all of my work sky high. It was a nice life. Goodbye." At that, Mephesto, being the crazy man he had become, jumped out of the window to join his son, and all the other victims of the story thus far.

Kyle ran to the window and looked down, grimacing at the disfigured body on the lawn below. He took back what he had said before. _Now_ there was only one word a person could say in this situation. "Shit."

A distinctive beep sounded, and a large clock on the wall that read '20:00' began counting down. Both boys were shocked back to reality. They stared at each other in terror before looking back to the clock. It now read '19:55.' "Ahhh," the two screamed in unison before fleeing from the room.

ooo

Meanwhile Cartman had successfully transformed the monster from a ten assed horror, to a two assed wimp. He was also having the time of his life. In fact, the only thing that might have made this moment better, would have been replacing at least one of the kids in the net with Kyle. Nothing brought the overweight child more joy than getting the best of the Jew. Nonetheless, Craig and Clyde were pretty fun to torment too.

Right now he had them acting like angry gorillas, an impressive feat given their rope net prison. Along the way, the boys had also managed to trade outfits, put on make up (compliments of Cartman. Why he was carrying it is anyone's guess), and develop a pirate-y speech impediment.

"Arr, what be next?" Clyde asked between apelike grunts.

Cartman gave it some thought. This would be a difficult choice. "How 'bout," he began, "you two gotta be my slaves forever."

"What?" Craig exclaimed. "Err, Matey?" he added, just to be safe.

"Do you want to die?"

"I'm not gonna be your slave!"

"That's fine, I'll be off then. See you guys around." He turned to walk away. Clyde tried to protest, but someone else beat him to it.

"I daresay, that's not a very nice thing to do," came a voice that sounded mildly British. Cartman turned, without a clue as to who had spoken those words. It was none other than old One Ass. All three boys gawked at the beast, who now stood upright and was sporting a monocle. There was a heavy clank, as a chainsaw fell to the ground, it's bearer in shock.

"Oh well. Since, dear boy, you have saved me from a life of misery and murder, I shall grant you a wish. Anything you want."

"Anything I want?" Cartman reiterated dreamily. Could this day get any better? He thought it over. One wish had to be used very carefully. If there was one thing he wanted more than anything, what would the greedy, racist, self-centered, sadistic little boy choose? Craig and Clyde looked on curiously, wondering what he'd choose. He came to a decision.

"All right, I want . . ."

There was a cry of "Cartman, look out," the revving of a chainsaw, and the one assed monster was no more. From behind it's fallen body stood Stan, who now carried Eric's discarded weapon.

"That was a close one, but at least the monster's dead," Stan cheered, oblivious of the magnitude of what he had just done.

While trying to escape the laboratory, the boys from the left path had discovered that their initial corridor had been blocked off by steel gates. They had backtracked, and taken a fork that put them in the center corridor, and were surprised to see Cartman standing face to face with what had once been the ten assed monster. Stan wasted no time in snatching the chainsaw and rushing at the beast, hoping to save his friend's life. The rescue-ee, however, was less than thrilled. He tackled the blue-eyed boy, and a scuffle between the two ensued with Stan as the victor.

Kyle was distracted by Clyde and Craig's predicament. "Dude, what happened to you?" he asked in wonder.

Both responded at the same time. "Cartman." Kyle shook his head. Why did Cartman have to be so immature? He looked for a way to get the other boys down, and found the chainsaw, now abandoned by Stan. Both boys were freed at the same time that boy in the red poof-ball hat finished his brief fight with the festively plump bigot.

The fat child in the bright red coat lay sprawled out on the ground in defeat. His suffering wasn't over yet. He looked up to stare into the faces of Craig and Clyde. Oh boy . . .

"You bastard," Craig spat, delivering a well placed kick to the groin. Cartman squeaked.

"Yeah," Clyde followed suit. He still didn't particularly have anything against the boy, but followed suit nonetheless. The dark haired boy, owner of the floppy-eared hat that was currently on Clyde's head, delivered one more kick for good measure before walking off to join Stan and Kyle.

An automated, female voice came from overhead. "Detonation in ten minutes."

"Oh shit, I almost forgot all about that!" Stan cried.

"What?" came Clyde's voice.

"This whole place is supposed to blow in ten minutes!" Kyle hastily explained. No more words were said. Stan and Kyle–against their better judgement–collected Cartman, and the five fled from the building, escaping with five whole minutes to spare. The boys didn't stop running until they heard the explosion. Stan stopped dead in his tracks.

"Oh my God! Wendy!" he screamed, turning around.

Kyle held him back. "You can't go back there, it's too dangerous!"

"I'm not losing Wendy too!"

"You don't have to worry about her," Clyde interrupted. "Or Jimmy for that matter." Stan looked helplessly at the brunet, still wearing Craig's hat.

"A gate closed between us when we were a few feet into the tunnel. They decided they wouldn't bother sticking around and went home."

Stan's expression became relieved. "Oh thank God!" he cried, sinking the short distance to the ground.

"One of the killers is dead," Kyle noted. "Maybe that means things will get a bit better?" Even Kyle didn't believe his words.

The five went off on their separate ways, each wishing that the day would be over soon. Today had been a miserable day.

ooo

While Stan's group had been adventuring inside Mephesto's laboratory, Jimmy and Wendy had indeed wandered off. However, they had not gone home. The two stood on the school's playground, neither saying anything for a long while. Without warning, Wendy removed her beret, and rearranged her hair, placing it in her face. It was only then that the crippled boy spoke up.

"So it doesn't look like Mephesto will survive the day."

"Nope," came the voice of Sasa, a demonic whisper.

"Th-that's–that's okay. We don't n-n-need him anymore anyway."

"Nope."

"If everything goes according to plan, all of the h-hor–all of the horror creatures will be infesting the town come Monday. That is what the b-b-boss wants after all."

"Of course."

"And then we'll all get what we wanted."

"Nope."

"Yeah. W-wai-wait a minute. What did you–what did you say?"

"The boss hates you too," the demonic child whispered evilly. "So I have permission to 'take care of' you.'" Wendy's face grinned evilly.

"You can't do that. You're forgetting that I have unde–undea–that I have undead– repellent."

"Nope," she drew closer to the handicapped boy, releasing her trademarked clicking noise. Jimmy pulled out his can and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

"What? It's stu–stuck!" he cried in chagrin. He tried again, but Sasa had already moved in for the kill. Yet another occupant of South Park, Colorado died that day.

* * *

I think I shoulda made this into a fan comic rather than a fan fic. Comics are so much easier. Anywho, reviews are always hearted.


	7. The Really Depressing Chapter

Woo, long update. Anywho, the first half of the chapter is really depressing. Blah.

Also, I wrote the middle part of the chapter while listening to Phantom of the Opera. Slightly more obvious.

* * *

News of the fiasco at Mephesto's laboratory was quick to spread, and with it, panic. People had been disappearing without warning all week, and now this? _Terrorists are attacking South Park,_ some citizens claimed. _Weird shit is going down, _were the thought of others. Regardless of what their opinions may have been, it was clear to those that remained in the town that something big was happening.

For Sheila Broflovski, it would begin another short-lived crusade. When it became clear to her that unworldly creatures were to blame for the unpleasant goings on, the Jewish woman took it upon herself to raise awareness for their existence. It had been a mildly successful endeavor.

Bright and early Saturday morning, the adults of the Broflovski family was watching the morning news. Sheila mused as she saw her favorite reporter, a Latino man with a gravy stain on his lapel, inform the viewers of important steps they could take to prevent an untimely death. That had been one of her suggestions. So enamored was the red-haired woman with the story, that she did not hear the protruding knock on the front door. Gerald, however, did.

"Hello? Hmm, I'm sorry, Kyle's not here right now. What? You're not here to see him?"

"Who is it Gerald?" Sheila asked, rising from her seat.

"I don't know, some—ahh!" a gunshot rang out, interrupting Gerald's reply, then the thud of a human body hitting the floor, and then silence.

"Gerald?" the woman cried out, panicked. Without a second thought, she rushed to the door to ensure her husband's welfare. She had not given any thought to the source of the gunshot.

A gruesome scene awaited her. On the ground was her husband, and above him stood a boy, about the same age as her own son, dressed entirely in black. A hood obscured his face from view. She opened her mouth to scream, but a second shot silenced her. There were to be no more vendettas for Sheila Broflovski.

ooo

Kyle hadn't slept at all the previous night. The fiasco at the lab had proved too much to handle. As a result he was up bright and early, and, at his mother's behest, had taken Ike to early morning survival classes.

As predicted, the classes were a waste of time. There was nothing they could teach that the boy in the green hat hadn't already learned the previous week. In addition, with all of the monsters about, it was more dangerous to travel to and from the elementary school (where the classes were held) than simply remaining home. Regardless, he wasted several good reluctant hours of his Saturday morning, and now was drowsily approaching his house, baby brother in tow. He was beginning to feel another cold coming on.

The moment he saw the open front door, his blood ran cold. "I-Ike, wait here," he stuttered. This wasn't good. All of the boy's horror movie survival guidelines were pushed to the back of his mind as he ran through the doorway.

His worst fears had come to pass. There on the ground were the bodies of both of his parents. No. This wasn't real; this was a dream, or a sick joke. It had to be. "Mom? Dad?" he willed his legs to move forward. Instead, they buckled, causing him to fall the short distance to the ground.

"Kyle?" Ike babbled, approaching Kyle. "I pooped my pants." The toddler's interjection snapped his older brother back to reality. Ike couldn't see this. No matter what happened, he had to protect the Canadian boy. That's what big brother's were for after all.

"Come on Ike, I just remembered there's something we gotta do." He began dragging the little boy back the way they had come. He had no destination in mind; he didn't care. It was just necessary for the two boys to get as far away from the house. Kyle didn't notice Ike struggling to return to their home; he didn't notice Count Dracula pass him by. He merely wandered incoherently, grasping Ike's hand tight in his own. The brothers soon found themselves on the steps of a familiar green house. Kyle knocked on the door.

ooo

For the first time since his arrival in South Park, Count Dracula felt truly happy. After giving into the obnoxiously chipper British boy's friendship, the vampire was finally beginning to discover how much better life was. In fact, he was currently on his way to Pip's house for a rousing game of checkers.

He arrived at Pip's a little after noon, as usual wearing the strongest sunblock he could buy at the corner store, his protective sunhat, and naturally, the traditional Dracula getup. Nervously, he raised a finger to ring the doorbell. The vampiric boy hesitated. Never having possessed any friends before, Dracula wasn't entirely sure of what to do. He paced on the front step for a few seconds, appearing to the random passerby as a suave little boy preparing to ask the prettiest girl in school on a date. Now all he needed were flowers.

After three minutes of anxious pacing, the debonair Transylvanian finally mustered up the courage to ring the bell. He wasn't expecting Red to answer.

"Oh, hi Dracula," the redhead said coyly. "What brings you here today?"

Dracula stared at the little girl, his expression half shocked/half confused. Pip invited _him_ over to play, so why was this little girl here? "Actually, I vas looking for Pip. Iss he here?" Red giggled and ran off, presumably to fetch the British boy, leaving the other to gather his thoughts.

Pip appeared momentarily with Red and another girl, Heidi Turner. "Hello Dracula!" he greeted. "Do come in." The vampire did so. "I'm so glad that you could come today. Welcome to my humble home. Would you care for some tea?"

"Pip, I thought the two off us vould be playing checkers today. Vhy are zese girls here?"

"Oh, they heard you'd be here, and they asked if they could come over too. I couldn't refuse. The more the merrier I always say." He giggled. Dracula, on the other hand, was less than amused.

"So zat iss how it iss. Fine! I know vhen I am not vanted!" At the outburst he stormed out of Pip's modest dwelling and off to find revenge. The boy had gained his trust and had betrayed it by inviting two strange girls that were certain to make fun of him. He could tell by the way they whispered and giggled every time he was around. Stupid girls. Stupid Pip. What he had done was definitely not cool. The British boy would be paying for that.

ooo

Surprised was the least of all that Eric Cartman was feeling when he flung open his door to find a distraught Kyle toting an irritated looking Ike on his front step. Shock left his features as a twisted pleasure took over.

"Why Kyle, whatever brings you here in the middle of the day?" The other boy remained motionless for several moments, as if he hadn't heard the question. Finally he spoke.

"T-they're gone."

"Who?" Eric was quite intrigued now.

Kyle looked at his little brother for a moment, not releasing the death-grip on his wrist. "M-mom and Dad. They're g-gone."

"Gone?" he knew what the other meant, of course, but Kyle was his sworn enemy-type-person, and Cartman's greatest joy in life was torturing him. From the look on his face, it was easy to see just how vulnerable he was right now, and the manipulative bigot was going to take full advantage of that. He was going to make this as painful for the self-righteous Jewish boy as he possibly could. Playing dumb was the beginning. "You mean like, at the store? Is that what you mean Kyle?"

"Dammit Cartman! You know what I mean!"

"Oh, you mean they're dead." He grinned maliciously. "Am I right Kyle?"

"What? Abaabaaba?" Ike cried. "Kyle, you lied to me?" Kyle's expression did not change. So, Ike hadn't known. That was a plus. Making the Jewish boy's life miserable was going to be much easier than he thought. An idea suddenly struck Cartman's nine year-old brain like a hammer, and as Cartman's ideas tended to be, it was both sick and directed at making a particular self-righteous redhead miserable.

"Well, it wouldn't be very nice of me to make you stay out there. Come in Kyle, come in." He moved aside to let the brothers enter. "Don't worry Kyle," he said, resting a hand on the other boy's shoulder, "I'll take good care of you. We're gonna have lots of fun together."

"What are you planning?" the Jewish boy asked suspiciously, albeit tiredly.

"Oh nothing, nothing." He shoved his hands into his pockets in search of a peace offering. What he found wasn't the best, but it would have to do. "Breath mint?" the obese child asked, holding the candy out to his "friend." Kyle shook his head tiredly and dragged his little brother to the kitchen.

"Maaam," called out the fat boy in his trademarked whine. Mrs. Cartman came running.

"What is it pumpkin?"

"Kyle's gonna stay here for awhile. That's okay, right?"

"Of course sweetie," Liane responded. She could never refuse her sweet, little angel anything. "How about I make and your little friend some cookies?"

"That'd be great mam."

ooo

Stan stared downheartedly out the window of his Uncle Jimbo's store. With the help of Kyle and the recently revived Kenny, the little boy had packed up the previous night and moved into the house of his only living relative. Both Jimbo and Ned did all they could to make Stan feel welcome. They even offered to take him hunting with them that Sunday. Despite all of this, however, the boy in the red poof-ball hat still felt as if he didn't belong.

He was disturbed from his thoughts by the ringing of the phone. Neither of the adults appeared to be in the room. "Um, the telephone's ringing," Stan called out half-heartedly. When no one had shown by the third ring, he picked it up.

"I-is Stan there?" came a shaky voice on the other end.

"Kyle? Is that you?"

"Stan, I-I'm at Cartman's house with Ike. I—well—my parents are—" he seemed unsure of what to say.

"Your parents?"

"Oh my God Stan! I think they're dead—I mean, I know." He seemed borderline hysterical. Stan froze. It was hard enough that he had lost his own parents, but now Kyle had too. This was too much. The dark-haired boy had never been good at dealing with death. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? "Stan?" came Kyle's still trembling voice.

"I-I'm sorry Kyle. I," he too didn't know how to finish his sentence. An idea struck him. "Listen, do you want to meet later? I mean, y-you were there for me and everything, so I want to be there for you."

There was silence for awhile. "That'd be great," the other boy finally said.

"Let's meet at the basketball court around three. Is that okay?"

"Yeah," came the downcast reply.

"R-right, I'll see you there then. Bye Kyle."

"Bye."

Stan slowly returned the receiver to its base. This was all too much. He laid his head in his arms and had a nice, long cry. He didn't hear the bell ring, signifying the arrival of a customer. Fortunately Jimbo returned quickly to deal with said customer before he could talk to the crying, Stan.

"Well what can I do for you kid?" he asked. Stan raised his head and hastily wiped his eyes.

"I need to kill someone—err _somezing_," came the heavily accented voice of the town's resident vampire. "Can you help me?"

"Of course." Jimbo too wasn't quite himself today. The death of his sister's family had hit him pretty hard as well. The two began a conversation that Stan was only vaguely aware of. His uncle would offer a weapon and the boy would continuously decline. The non-vampiric boy in the room was beyond the point of caring that Dracula was a vampire. He simply didn't have the energy to deal with anything.

"Excuse-a me," the vampire asked of Stan. The boy in the red poof-ball hat didn't move. "You vouldn't know how to kill a vampire, vould you?"

"A stake," came the absentminded reply.

"Yes, zat's it! Zank you very much." At that, Dracula made a hasty retreat. Jimbo looked after the small vampire in a preoccupied way.

"What a strange kid."

ooo

While Kyle was in a crushed state at Cartman's, and Stan was in a crushed state at Jimbo's, Wendy was in a perfectly cheerful stat at the local cemetery. This is because Sasa was currently in control, and she had a plan. The cursed child had come to the town via video tape, on the orders of a mastermind. However, her only order was to kill as many people as she could possibly manage. What better way to do that than to create a zombie outbreak?

Since gaining a corporeal body, Sasa had been deeply researching necromancy on the internet, and in the process had found thousands of bogus web pages, hundreds that actually knew what they were talking about, less than ten that proved useful to her cause, and millions dedicated to porn. She couldn't understand for the life of her why anyone would want to have sex with a dead body, and understood even less why they would videotape it.

Still, from her ten or so helpful sites, Sasa had found a useful spell which merely required an incantation and a Swiss army knife to cast, and she was now using it in the local South Park cemetery. "Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation. Darkness stirs and wakes imagination. Silently the senses abandon their defenses. Come, help me make the music of the night," she chanted, holding the knife above her. Apparently the great necromancers were fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Whouda thunk it?

The sky grew dark overhead, and thunder rumbled dangerously close. In a flash, Wendy's body was struck by a stray bolt of lightning. Fortunately for her, it was magic lightning, and therefore much less potent (and the great elementalists are big fans of Final Fantasy). The little girl was thrown back several feet, a tombstone stopping her fall.

"Ugh," she muttered, crawling to her feet. No sooner than Sasa had regained her footing, hundreds of hands simultaneously burst free from the confining earth. "Hurray! I alone have unleashed the zombie horde on South Park! Within mere hours, the town will be mine!" She gazed around the graveyard at the unearthed hands. _Funny_, she thought. _They don't seem to be moving._ "Hey!" the demonic child cried, "what do you think you're doing? Hurry up and get out of there so you can take the town."

Hundreds of hands wiggled ineffectively, trying to hasten the process of reaching the surface. It seemed as if Sasa had misestimated the speed at which decomposed flesh could crawl through six feet of earth. This was going to take a lot longer than she had thought.

ooo

Three o'clock was drawing nigh. Stan stood at the basketball court with Kenny, waiting for the remainder of his friends to show up. Kenny was dribbling the ball without a care in the world. It would be nice having just the four of them there, like old times. Maybe, he had thought, being together like old times would let them forget this horrible week. Then again, it probably wouldn't. Oh well. At least Kenny was cheerful company. After all, it took a lot more than death to faze the perverted, poor kid.

Stan glanced at his watch. "They're late," he muttered. As if on cue, Cartman turned the corner and ran (see walking at a moderate pace) to the court.

"I'm here," he called. He reached the court, breathing heavily. "We can start now, just let me catch my breath."

"Only _you_ would be tired after walking three blocks Fat boy," Stan mocked, for a moment, forgetting his burdens. "'Sides, we can't start until Kyle gets here."

"Oh," Cartman looked away shiftily. "He—uh—he told me to tell you he's not coming."

"What? But he told me he would on the phone."

"Well he changed his mind," Cartman replied. "Now c'mon," he stole the ball out of Kenny's hands, receiving a disgruntled 'mmrph' in the process, "Let's play ball."

Kenny lunged at the fatter child, effortlessly stealing the ball from him, and made a shot. Stan waited for a bit longer, valiantly waiting for his best friend. "Ay, Asshole!" Cartman cried from the other side of the court. "Are you gonna sit there and cry like a little pussy, or are you gonna come here and get your ass kicked by me?" Kenny added some encouraging, muffled words and finally, Stan joined his friends.

ooo

At the home of Phillip Pirrup (more commonly known as Pip), Heidi and Red were starting to grow irritated. The two girls had come for one reason and one reason only: Dracula. He was handsome, charming, and most importantly, wealthy—what little girl in her right mind wouldn't be attracted to him? They were devastated when he left. However, Pip, being the polite boy that he was, saw the ladies feeling less than joyous, and offered to make them tea and cake. They obviously couldn't refuse.

So here they sat, several hours later, munching on snacks and playing a rousing game of checkers while Pip was in the kitchen, making more refreshments. When the door rang, Red once again offered to get it. When the redhead opened it, she was surprised to see her beloved Dracula, and more surprised when he lunged forward and latched onto her neck, sucking her blood. Within a minute all of her blood had been drained.

"Rebecca?" Heidi called from the other room. "Who is it?" Dracula swiftly crossed the threshold of the British boy's home and scuttled toward the sound of her voice. She looked up from reorganizing the board to her liking, to see the dashing vampire.

"Dracula?" she cried. "What are you doing—" her inquiry was cut off by Dracula springing toward her, treating her to the same fate as her friend. He had barely finished his second meal of the afternoon when the chipper Brit, hands full of pastries, bounced into the room.

"Oh Dracula! I'm so pleased to see you again!" he cheered, apparently not noticing the dead body on the floor, or the blood smeared around his friend's mouth.

"You," the vampire accused. "Don't you prrretend to be my friend! You brought me here to make ffun ov me!"

"I don't understand. Would you like a pastry?" he extended one of the treats to Dracula.

"No!" he shouted, smacking the offending object away. "I vill do vhat I vas zupposed to do in ze ffirst place!" He grabbed the very confused Pip, and in a brief moment was sucking his blood. After finishing his final meal, he pulled the stake he had acquired earlier that afternoon and jammed it through his own heart, crumbling to dust. Another of the week's villains was gone.

ooo

Sunday passed by fairly uneventfully. Dracula and ten asses were dead, and Sasa was still waiting on her zombie uprising. With the main villains of the week out of commission, the tired residents of South Park were finally given a day's rest. However, it would be short lived.

It was Sunday night, nearly Monday morning, and, after more than a day of crawling through six feet of soil, the zombies had finally arisen. Sasa, using Wendy's body was jumping for joy. Her plan was underway. The master was going to be so happy.

* * *

As always, Reviewers I love long time.


	8. The Trouble with Zombie Hordes

I lack motivation. I hate leaving things unfinished, so the next four chapters will come out eventually, I'm just not sure when. Hopefully quicker than this one did. Sorry guys.

* * *

Sasa's joyful dancing may have been slightly premature. Despite being undead herself, she had never noticed the sluggish pace that zombies did—well, everything. She had spent a good number of excruciatingly boring hours playing solitaire in the cemetery as she waited for the zombies to rise from their graves. Now, in the few remaining hours of Sunday night, she was traveling beside the horde on its painfully slow way to South Park. She was growing irate. It had taken a good 45 minutes to get the last of the monstrous brutes out of the graveyard, she had a good feeling that reaching town would take the rest of Sunday—and worse—a good portion of Monday. She really did not have the time for this.

At a leisurely pace, Sasa easily strolled to the front of the horde, and briefly scanned the area for footing. A nearby tree stump would have to suffice. She hopped atop it, and let out an overdrawn and unearthly screech to gather the attention of the zombies. They stopped, a few scratching their heads in confusion,

"Brraaaaiiiinnnss?" asked one, in his raspy droning voice. He was one of the few corpses with the luxury of functioning vocal cords.

"Not yet," the girl muttered, dismissing the poor attempt at a question. "Zombie horde, I have school tomorrow, so I'll be going on ahead and leaving you to find South Park on your own. It's straight ahead—no problem. You can have all the brains you want once you get there, so try to pick up the pace." She paused and stared at the blank faces (well what may have constituted for faces in some cases) of the crowd.

She sighed at the realization that she wouldn't be able to see this plan of hers come to fruition. The boss had demanded the gathering take place at South Park Elementary tomorrow. Missing that would be her head. "Good luck to you bastards," she called to the crowd. "I may see you again someday—though hopefully I won't," she mumbled as an afterthought. And with that, she vanished into the night.

Her zombies continued to gaze blankly into the distance for several moments (which in zombie time is actually about ten minutes) before the vocal cord zombie trudged a few steps forward, and with a triumphant cry of "Brrrraaaaaiiiiinnnssss!" had the horde marching once again.

ooo

Despite Sasa's general cynicism in regards to her zombie apocalypse, the horde actually managed to pull a fairly successful night of slaughter and mayhem after her departure. It had been but five minutes before the first unfortunate victim arrived. He was very lost, and very, very high.

Towelie had recently made the decision to return to South Park after his most recent failure in life. The journey had taken much longer than he had initially intended, mostly due to distractions and misadventures caused by his drug habit. He actually had come upon this spot purely by chance, after one such adventure involving tango, lesbians, and Broadway productions gone horribly wrong left him stranded in the middle of Colorado—again.

He regarded the approaching mob with mild interest. "Where's this party going?" He called out to the group. They of course, gave no reply.

"Awww," said Towelie, "that's not very friendly guys." Still no answer. He stood in silence, watching the strangers approach slowly. This party was certainly no fun. The group was too uptight to even talk to him. The Smart Towel blankly eyed the burning joint in his hand. That's when the brilliant idea struck him.

"Hey," he cried again, taking a few steps towards the mob, closing the distance between them. He took a drag on his joint before continuing. "You wanna go get high?" His question was left hanging in the air for a few seconds before the first zombie reached him. In a zombie instant, Towelie's smart chip was consumed by one of the eight zombies trying to eat his fluffy, towel-y "flesh."

The horde marched on, trampling the corpse of the once stoned-off-his-ass towel. However, once the zombies had passed, the towel unsteadily rose to his feet. At lightning-fast zombie speeds, he caught up with the rest of the horde, and dropping his joint, turned to his neighbor and stated "Wherever you go, don't forget to bring a towel." The neighbor answered with an enthusiastic moan.

The zombie horde marched on.

ooo

The horde would claim only two more victims that night.

Between the cemetery and the town of South Park itself, lay a forest. A forest which, at this time of year was full of all kinds of innocent animals which, on a moment's notice were prone to "coming right at" people. The well-known hunting duo of the town, Jimbo and Ned, were taking advantage of the situation.

They had tried to convince Stan to join them on this trip, but the boy had declined, muttering something about his friend Kyle. Something about how the other kid hadn't shown up at the basketball court that day or some such nonsense. Not that either adult had been paying too much attention to the plight of the boy.

While Jimbo had initially been a little wary about letting his nine-year old nephew, and as of late, only surviving family member remain at home alone, the lure of the hunt had won him over. Right now, he and his heterosexual (presumably) life partner, Ned, were seated beside their campfire, lazily waiting for a "big one" to show up. The corpses of a large number of rabbits, some dear, a few bears, and possibly even big foot lay in a pile behind them.

Perhaps it was the irresistible aroma of blood that attracted the zombie horde. Or perhaps Jimbo and Ned had just been unfortunate enough to make their camp in the path of the the mob of rotting flesh. Either way, both men were nearing the end of their time on Earth.

Ned heard it first. The sound of slow, trudging footsteps. He elbowed a half-asleep Jimbo in the rib, and exclaimed in his automated voice, "I hear something! I think it's a big one."

"A big one?" the other man cried, immediately relieved of his drowsiness. He jumped to his feet, reaching for his rifle, and Ned followed suit. "Hmm," he paused to listen for the noise Ned had mentioned. At last the low rumble reached his ears. "You're right! Why, that sounds like—a herd of elephants! No—wait—undead elephants! This is great!"

"Mmm, that one there's an endangered species," Ned added electronically.

"All right!" came the enthusiastic response.

The men took their positions behind some strategic bushes, and held their guns at ready, waiting for the "herd of undead elephants" to arrive. And arrive they did, though of course, being nothing like what the hunters had expected.

"Why Ned," Jimbo exclaimed, startled. "Those ain't undead elephants at all! They're just plain undead!"

"If we kill them, we'll be heroes," was Ned's reply.

"Let's get to it then!" He rose from his spot, and turned a serious gaze on his partner, as if to give a final farewell. "Good luck Ned."

"Good luck Jimbo."

At that, both men leapt from their hiding places, guns ready. With a shout of "Look out Ned, they're coming right for us!" the two men began shooting at any zombie they could plausibly hit (and even a few less than plausible ones.

It was an initial success. Sounds of gunfire, victorious cheering, and exploding zombie heads pierced the forest for minutes. Zombies collapsed to the ground in greater quantity each second. Some rose again, some did not. The snow was splayed with the rotting flesh and guts of the undead; if a being the size of Mecha Streisand were to vomit on the snow, it would not be unlike the picture being painted now.

The number of the re-dead undead was increasing at a strong rate, but the hunting partners were dismayed to find that their ammunition supply was shrinking at an even greater rate. Worse yet, the zombies still seemed to be coming.

Jimbo and Ned put up a good fight, but eventually their luck ran out on them. As the zombies drew ever closer, the men continued to exhaust their ammo supply. Eventually, the time came when Jimbo fired his gun, and no shot rang out. Ned met the same fate shortly. Ignoring the possibility of easily outrunning the zombies, the men dropped their weapons, and stood steadfast, waiting for the horde to approach.

"Well, Ned, it was a good fight. It was nice knowing you Pal."

"Mmm, you too Jimbo."

The zombies were upon them in another several zombie seconds; and after that, it wasn't long before the long-time friends met the same fate as one aforementioned Smart Towel. Jimbo and Ned, however, did get one last laugh, even if it occurred after their untimely undeaths.

In order to catch more vicious puppies and bunnies, the hunters had dug a rather impressive hole, and had somehow managed to camouflage the monstrosity with strategically-placed leaves and sticks. It was a miracle that the trap existed, but as a result of the illogicality of the monstrous pit, it wasn't disguised too well, and most animals possessing functioning brains had avoided the trap. Zombies, however, lacked brains.

The first one stepped onto what looked like it could have been solid forest cover (if one's eyes were closed maybe) and tumbled fifty feet into the pit. (It was, in fact, a ridiculously large pit). Then, like lemmings, the remaining zombies followed, one after the other, until the pit was full of writhing zombies.

It was fortunate for all parties involved (save for maybe the humans) that Sasa decided to check on her zombie apocalypse gone-wrong one last time before turning in for the night. She gazed at what she likened to a giant bowl of zombie soup wearily. These guys really were more trouble than they were worth. She let out another undead screech to call their attention, and like good little students, the zombies stopped flailing and focused on their leader.

"You make me sick!" the creepy girl snarled. "I leave you for a few hours, and you've gotten yourselves stuck in yet another obstacle? At this rate, you'll really miss the big showdown tomorrow.

"Now listen, I don't care how you do it, but I want you to scramble out of that pit five minutes ago, and get your decrepit, fleshy asses to the town! Do I make myself clear?" She didn't wait for the zombies to respond before once again disappearing into the darkness. Zombies always put her in a bad mood.

Wanting to obey their leader at all costs, the zombies began the excruciating process of removing themselves from their second hole tonight. This massive task would take a long time, even by zombie standards, but Sasa's word was law, and if she wanted them in town for the "big showdown," then they would be there, trapped in a pit or not.

ooo

Stan groaned as he walked into his South Park Elementary classroom on Monday morning. While the class had been far from full capacity on Friday, today had taken the absences to ridiculous extremes. In fact, looking around, Stan noticed that the class only seemed to include himself, Cartman, Kenny, Craig, Timmy, Clyde, Wendy, and—wait. Where was Kyle?

The worried Marsh boy gave the room a second pass over. This couldn't be right; Kyle was one of the smartest people in the class. He couldn't really be . . . dead? Before Stan could reflect on this further, the person he wanted to see the least right now bounded into his vision.

"Hey Stan," Cartman greeted, a bit too cheerfully Stan noted. "Sure is empty here today, huh? Not that it's a bad thing. I mean, it's nice just bein' here with you, and me,"

"Brrb mmrph mmmph bree!" Kenny interjected.

"Oh yeah, and—uh—Kenny too. The point is, y'know, that Kyle's not here." Stan glared at his "friend" at the mention of the name.

"What did you do to him Fatass?" he spat.

"Me? Why, I didn't do anything. No, not me. I mean, we shouldn't be placing blame here man, you should be worrying about your friend. I mean, think about it, he could be tied up in some flooding basement somewhere, unable to escape, or do anything but wait for—"

"Dude, that's sick," Stan muttered with obvious worry.

"Hey guys," Craig began suddenly, interrupting their conversation. "Did you hear what happened to the other kids?"

"What other kids?" Cartman asked.

"The other ones in our class you fat asshole!" came the angry response.

"There are other kids in our class?"

Craig growled audibly, but continued with his line of thought. "So you see, Millie, and Bradley, and Lola, right? Apparently there's this creepy guy goin' around in a striped shirt and killing people in their dreams. I guess he got them. Kinda scary, huh?"

"I-in their dreams?" Stan stuttered. This was certainly some disconcerting news. How do you fight someone like that?

"That's kinda scary," Clyde agreed, "but _I_ heard that there's also this chainsaw-wielding psycho in a creepy mask that got Esther and Kevin while they were out camping by Starks Pond. Don't know why there were doin' something dumb like that though. Y'know, 'cuz everyone's been dying lately."

"Dude, you guys just pulled those out of some dumb horror movies. I've seen those too," Cartman taunted. "'Cuz seriously, how did you find out about this, huh? Unless, _you_ guys are the killers—together!"

"You asshole! If we were the killers, why would we trap ourselves in some stupid net with a monster!" Craig shouted at the skeptic.

"Aww, that's good Craig. Try and shift the blame off yourself! I see what you did there!"

"Well then how do we know that _you're_ not the killer?" Craig retorted.

"Because I have—" he stopped short as the figure of a strangely wet, and very angry redhead Jewish boy entered the room.

"Kyle!" both Stan and Cartman exclaimed at the same time. The former in relief, the latter in shock. Kyle stared at his mortal enemy, and then charged like a mad bull, tackling the heavier kid to the ground, punching and kicking.

"He's possessed!" Clyde screamed.

"Kyle? Dude, what's wrong?"

"You want your killer? He's right here!" he screamed over the top of Cartman's pained wailing. He gifted the boy with another punch to the face before being dragged to his feet by his best friend.

"Brrh baappenf?" Kenny asked.

"This—_shithead_—tied me up in his fucking basement and decided it'd be fun to play some psycho games. 'Hey Kyle, can you swim? Oh I hope you can swim. Well, for your sake, 'cuz I'm gonna fill this room to the ceiling with water 'cuz I'm a fat asshole. Good luck!' You make me sick!" he spat at the fat child sprawled out on the ground.

"So that's what you were talking about earlier," Stan muttered, appalled.

Cartman weakly crawled to his feet. "Oh c'mon Kyle, I wasn't seriously."

"You tried to drown me!"

"Okay, I was playing a game. No harm, right?" His efforts were having no effect on the other boy. "Look I'm not the killer."

"Yeah, I'll believe that. What with all that's happened," Craig added, dripping with sarcasm.

"I'm not. But anyway, how'd you even get out Kyle?"

"Your mother."

"Dammit mom, I told you not to go down there," Cartman muttered to himself. Kyle, however, was not amused and pounced again. It was at this moment that Garrison finally arrived to her class.

"Hey you little assholes! I don't care what personal matters you need to work out, but you're not doing it in my class! Get your asses to your seats!" The students began trudging back to their desks. Kyle continued to glare maliciously at Cartman for another moment before climbing off of him and taking his seat next to Stan. Cartman was the last to sit down.

"Now, let's get started on today's lesson."

Wendy had been watching the debacle unfold before her with mild interest. Part of her knew that the fat kid had always had it in him to be capable of such evil deeds, but she had forgotten just how capable until now. Perhaps he could be recruited to their cause.

Regardless, now that Garrisson's lesson was well underway, the demon-possessed child was immeasurably bored. And now she was growing hungry.

She glanced around the classroom, eying potential snacks. Who best to eat? Stan? Kyle? Nah, the boss needed them for tonight's showdown. Cartman had earned the respect to be eaten at a later date. What about Craig and Clyde? They were expendable, weren't they? She noted that Clyde did seem to have a bit more meat on his bones than the rest of the class—save for one fatass. He would do.

But as she began to stalk towards Clyde's desk, Wendy locked eyes with one Kenny McCormick, unfortunately for him. Sure, he was kind of malnourished, but something about him drew her in. In a split second, she had pounced the orange-parka clad boy and began chowing down. The rest of the class barely seemed to notice. Even Stan and Kyle's "Oh my God, she killed Kenny," "You bastard!" was rather flat today.

Garrison, however, was less than pleased. "Wendy! I've told you already to stop eating your classmates! Do you want me to send you to the principal's?"

The girl immediately backed down, and tried to present herself in a civil manner. Quite a feat considering her blood-smeared features. "I'm sorry Mrs. Garrison, but—but," she stuttered, looking for inspiration. A blue hat out of the corner of her eye gave it. "But _Craig_ told me to do it!"

"Huh?" the boy muttered. Hearing his name had pulled him out of a lovely nap.

"Ugh," Garrison groaned. "I should have know it was you. You're always giving me trouble."

"What did I do this time?"

"Just, take your stuff and get out of here."

"Err, okay." At that, Craig grabbed his backpack, and walked out of the classroom to a familiar destination.

"Now," Garrison continued. "If Wendy would get back to her seat, we can continue the lesson about The Facts of Life."


	9. All Hell Breaks Lose

Wow, magic inspiration all of a sudden. I'm surprised I was able to get this up when I did. Hopefully the rest will come soon. The end of this chapter was the inspiration for the entire fic btw.

* * *

Oh dear, that Eric was quite the handful, Liane mused to herself while tidying up the basement. But that was one of the things which endeared her to him. Like this little game he had played with his friend, Kyle—so inventive. Her little angel could be a bit forgetful sometimes though; he'd completely forgotten to untie his friend, or turn the water off. Silly boy.

Hmm, this water damage was proving harder to deal with than she had initially thought. Liane Cartman sat down upon the chair she had freed Kyle from a few hours before, put her chin in her hands, and stared at the mess around her absentmindedly.

She'd somehow managed to deal with the worst of it, but there still remained much to be done. Damp shelves were covered in who knows how many water-damaged knick-knacks; she'd have to find what was still salvageable. And then there was the matter of the pesky three inches of water that still covered the ground. Best get started.

Mrs. Cartman stood up, and moved to the nearest shelf, ready to assess the damage. The crusty, old book was probably a goner. Wait, crusty, old book? Since when had that been there? She pulled it from the shelf, and unearthed a tape recorder from behind it. Again, how peculiar, she thought. She could have sworn that she'd gotten rid of her last tape recorder years ago. Even stranger, there appeared to be a tape inside of it. Possessed by curiosity, she pressed the play button. An unfamiliar voice met her ears.

He spoke of being an archaeologist, and how he'd discovered The Book of the Dead, the book which she presumed was now in her hands. She didn't quite understand everything he was going on about, but decided that the man's voice was sexy enough to make good background noise as she tidied the rest of the basement.

The woman continued on with her work for a bit, idly listening to the handsome voice coming forth from the machine. However, things began to get strange once it began reading passages from the book. Really strange. Scary strange. Drafts of air blowing debris around the room strange in fact. Frightened, Liane lunged at the tape recorder and pressed the stop button.

The air began to settle. Well that certainly was peculiar.

Liane returned to cleaning the room in silence, completely unaware of the strange presence watching her from beyond her sight.

ooo

In the city of South Park, everything was about to go to hell. It had taken awhile, but Sasa's evil zombie horde had finally reached the town's entrance. The few remaining adults fled in terror, at a pace just slow enough for the zombies to keep up. It would have been silly to panic at something that had not the slightest chance of ever catching them, wouldn't it?

However, despite the slowness with which they walked, the zombies were actually rather destructive once given the chance. Poor Mrs. McCormick couldn't shuffle away fast enough. The zombies ate her. The Donovans tried hiding in Tom's Rhinoplasty. The zombies burst through the front window and ate them. The Testaburgers ventured to move the city's remaining inhabitants into the community center—not a bad idea. Unfortunately, when a polite knock was heard at the main doors, Mrs. Testaburger felt it would have been rude to not answer. She was eaten by a zombie wearing a bowler and monocle.

Zombies ran rampant within the center, picking off whomever they could catch. The scene looked terribly grim. Someone would have to do something. And indeed someone did, for within the community center, there was one person who felt the need to stop this madness at any cost. Well, person may have been stretching it a bit.

"Howdy ho!" Mr. Hankey cried, as he appeared before the zombies. "Don't you think this is awfully unfestive of you? You'll be put on Santa's naughty list for sure if you don't shape up." The zombie before him seemed to look nervous at that prospect. Then again, it was hard to tell without a face. "But don't worry, I can help you get into the spirit of the season."

Music began to waft through the air, and the festive Christmas Poo began a cheerful musical number.

_You may be dead_

_You may have no brain_

_You may like to eat human flesh_

_But that don't matter to Santa~_

_You may be ugly_

_You may be rotting_

_But that don't matter at Christmastime_

'_Cuz Santa loves you, big or small_

_Santa loves you, short or tall_

_So gather 'round_

_And spread some cheer_

_And you'll be friends with_

_Saaaaa—_

The zombie ate him mid-note. It was October 31st. It still had two months to make things up to Father Christmas.

The havoc continued unimpaired.

ooo

The zombies continued to inflict chaos upon the town, one house at a time. There were people being eaten left and right, and by the time lunch was over, the zombie horde had nearly doubled in size. It was around this time that a group of hungry zombies came upon a little green house: the house of Eric and Liane Cartman.

The zombie at the head of the pack trudged up to the front door and rang the bell. A cheerful looking woman opened it, carrying a plate, from which wafted a heavenly aroma. Before the first zombie had time to lunge, the woman held the plate before her, and in a pleasant voice offered, "cookies?"

The zombies where thrown off guard. Never before had anyone been kind enough to offer them anything. It would've brought a tear to each of their little zombie eyes, that is, if they had had eyes in the first place. The zombies each took a cookie, and began munching on it cheerfully. The leader mumbled something that may have been "thank you," but sounded more like "braaaaiiinns."

"Well sillies, it's awfully cold out there. Why don't you come in here and warm yourselves up?" Mrs. Cartman stood aside and the zombies crawled into her house and sat on the couch. "I'll go get some more snacks for you. Here, I'll leave you the remote."

One of the zombies took the remote in its rotting hand, and after some puzzling over what each button did, managed to turn on the television.

"Ahahahah, oh Terrance, you farted!" came a bemused Canadian voice."

"Why, I'm not Terrance."

"You're not?"

"No, I'm zombie Terrance! And I want your brains"

"Oh no! Whatever will I do now?" Being Terrance and Phillip of course, the answer was obvious. A fart sounded and both of them began their hysterical laughter.

The zombies all tilted their heads in confusion. What were they doing here? Mrs. Cartman's hospitality was nice, but Sasa would be awfully cross with them if she found out they were slacking off. It was time to get back to work. The zombies all stood up in unison as Mrs. Cartman returned, arms full of Cheesy Poofs and Snacky S'mores. "I'm back!"

The zombies lunged to attack, but before any could land a bite, they found themselves, to their great confusion, on the floor with various zombie parts strewn about the floor.

"Brains," one said in confusion. It would have been scratching its head, if only it had any arms left.

"My that's awfully rude," exclaimed Liane Cartman. But there was something different about her. Her face seemed a bit distorted, and her eyes shone in a milky white color. Ohh, so that was it. They had been attacking one of their own—how silly. The disembodied zombies, ashamed, rolled themselves out the front door, and down the street, hoping to wreak havoc elsewhere.

The evil Mrs. Cartman, or more likely, the monster that was possessing her, grinned to herself.

ooo

South Park Elementary was one of the few places yet to fall under attack from the zombie horde. However, they'd soon have other problems on their hands.

At the moment, Craig was sitting patiently outside of Mr. Mackey's office; a place he had become quite familiar with over the years. He was, frankly, glad for a chance to escape the chaos that had been plaguing the town over the last week. Going to the councilor's was normal. It was a normal thing that happened to normal kids. No monsters, no demons, no zombies, and nobody dying. Craig was in his happy place—for all of about five minutes.

He was gazing at the wall across from him, when the door opened, and a kid in a black cowl walked through. He didn't even notice at first. However, when the kid pulled a gun out from beneath his clothing, Craig prominently sat up straighter. This was bad.

However, the kid didn't even seem to notice the boy in blue. Rather he went straight past him and into Mackey's office.

"Hmm? Craig, I thought I told you to wait in the hall, m'kay? Wait, you're not Craig." A shot rang out, and Mackey let out one last strangled cry of "m'kay" before Craig heard a loud thunk. Moments later, the hooded boy left Mackey's office, and proceeded to repeat the process for Principal Victoria and Nurse Gollum. Then, without a word, he left the office, walking right past the startled delinquent.

Craig sat in his chair in utter silence for a few minutes, afraid the attacker would come back. But once it was clear he wouldn't, and the initial shock had waned a bit, Craig uttered the only thing that would come to his mind. "Holy shit."

ooo

Mrs. Garrison was having trouble controlling her unruly classroom. She had thought sending Craig to the office would end her troubles, and she could get on with her lesson, but her hopes had been crushed by the cruel hand of reality.

"We gotta kill that hippie bitch!"

"Excuse me? I'm right here!"

"No one's killing anyone. We don't have to kill Wendy."

"Yeah that's right, you would defend your little girlfriend. I bet she has you under some kind of a spell."

"I'm not under any spell. I just don't think we should kill Wendy."

"But Stan, she ate Kenny. Everyone saw her," Kyle said softly.

"See, Kahl sees my point."

"Don't worry, we'll kill the fatass too."

"Ay!"

"Waaaaahhhhhhhh."

"Now look at what you guys did! You made Clyde cry!"

"Timmah!"

"Shut up, you little retards. Do you want to go join Craig?"

But Garrison's demands fell on deaf ears. The arguments continued. Should they kill Wendy? Or Cartman? Or should Stan stop being a pussy and face the fact that his girlfriend was a monster? Or should Kyle stop deliberately opposing Cartman, even when he knew the other was right? Or perhaps Clyde should stop crying. All of this was giving the aging teacher one monstrous headache. How was she going to stop this mess? Well, help would soon rear its much-appreciated head, albeit from a rather unlikely source.

Without warning, random articles began to fly around the room—pencils, papers, Timmy. The children, startled, turned to the back of the classroom where Damien stood upon his desk, eyes glowing red.

"I said, silence yourselves and listen to me!" The class, Garrison included, were silent as the grave as they looked upon the little antichrist. Well, aside from Stan.

"Oh, hey Damien. Where have you been?"

"I said silence!" he roared, causing Stan to shrink into his chair, terrified. "And I've been here the entire time. No one's noticed me. Idiots.

"Anyway, I have a message to deliver to all of you. From my father." The class collectively gulped in silence.

Damien's voice became a deep, booming, unearthly tone as he began anew. "His time is upon you. The sun will turn to black and the Earth will open to swallow you, as the hour of darkness draws nigh. There is no stopping it. There is no fighting it. For he desires naught but one thing: revenge. Not even the littlest child will be spared. And as he picks you off one by one, I shall ascend to the surface, and Hell with me. It'll really be a blast. So long as Chris doesn't mess it up. That guy's kind of a jerk.

"Anyway, yeah, after you've all died, feel free to join the party. There's gonna be complimentary leis for the first 7000 guests. Bye." Damien shut his mouth, looking a bit embarrassed. Sometimes his father could be such a dork.

"There it is," he started, recomposing himself. "From the Dark One himself. Enjoy the next few hours, for they will be your last on Earth! Muhahahah—"

"Oh shut up!"

"Ha—what?"

"I said shut up," Cartman repeated himself. "You're just trying to scare us with your end of the world bullshit." Damien looked taken aback. "So why don't you go and get your little pussy ass back home, 'cuz we're not gonna put up with any of your high and mighty talk. Right guys?"

"Right!" the class echoed.

Damien gazed at the angry faces around the classroom, each focused on him. This wasn't fair. All he had wanted was friends. Why did everyone have to pick on him all the time? Tears began to well up in his demonic eyes. "Fine! I hate you guys anyway!" he cried, before disappearing in a flash of blackness.

"That guy's a total asshole." Cartman relaxed into his desk, glad that the nuisance was gone. "But like I was saying, we really need to kill Kyle."

Kyle, however, did not respond.

"Ay! I said we need to kill you, weren't you listening?"

He certainly didn't appear to be. He was staring at the desk that had just held Damien, with wide eyes, mumbling something to himself.

"He's possessed!" Clyde cried in panic.

Stan gave his best friend a concerned look. "Kyle? What's wrong?"

"Not even the littlest child."

"What?"

"Damien. He said not even the littlest child will be spared."

"So?" Stan was having trouble following his friend's thought process.

"Ike!" Kyle cried, his voice breaking in panic. "They're gonna kill Ike! I gotta save him" The boy made a break for the door, but Stan stepped in front of him, blocking the way.

"I can't let you go out there. You could die."

Kyle seemed to care less. "I'm not losing Ike! Not now!" He pushed past his friend, and into the hallway. Stan stood dumbfounded, watching the other's retreating form.

"God dammit Kyle," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, before following him.

The silence that had fallen over the remainder of the class was broken by a huff from Mrs. Garrison. "Well," she said haughtily, "running off like that, they're gonna die for sure." Wendy, Clyde, and Timmy looked nervous at her words. "But now we can finally get back to the lecture. Now, as you know, Blair was the rich bitch of the group, but I bet you wouldn't guess that—"

The door slammed open, and into Garrison's face, effectively cutting her off, and eliciting a small scream from the rest of the class. The teacher was not pleased. She slammed the door shut, ready to take vengeance on whichever brat that had the gall to hit her with it.

"Craig, I thought I sent you to the councilor's," Garrison reprimanded, barely containing her anger.

Craig stood in silence for a few seconds, catching his breath. Finally he spoke. "Mr. Mackey's dead ma'am."

The balding woman eyed him suspiciously. "That's no reason to come back here. Go back to the office and think about what you've done." Whatever that had been, she thought to herself, dismissively.

"I don't want to Ma'am."

"You don't?" the rage in Garrison's voice was quite audible now.

"No Ma'am. Some kid in a black hood came in and shot everybody. Now the office is full of dead people. And that's why I don't want to go back in there," the boy stated matter-of-factly.

"Ah-hah! We all know what this means!" Cartman shouted triumphantly. Everyone turned to stare at him. "Craig's the murderer!"

"No I'm not fatass!"

"You so seriously are! Why would the killer leave only you alive otherwise?"

"Umm."

"Well?" Cartman prodded.

"Hey, yeah." Clyde seemed thoughtful as he spoke. "And I've been friends with you all this time. I trusted you! I—I could be dead right now!" The thought made him fall back into his chair.

"What? No, I'm not the killer!"

"Then why are you alive?" Cartman seemed to be quite enjoying himself.

"I don't know?" Craig seemed to be rather confused himself.

"Shut up! What is wrong with you today?" Garrison shouted. "All of you take your seats. And Craig? You stop making up stupid stories and get back to the councilor's office."

"But I'm not making it up Ma'am."

"You will do as you're told, Young Man."

"But—"

Suddenly, the door flew open again, though this time Janet Garrison was prepared. She caught it in her hand and slammed it violently shut, barley missing the child that had just burst through it.

"And what do you want?"

The child said nothing, but stared at Garrison. Or at least it seemed to—it's face was obscured by a black hood.

"It's him!" Craig exclaimed, diving behind one of the desks for shelter.

"You are disrupting class young man," the teacher reprimanded the child in black. "What do you have to say for yourself?" The child once again let out no words, but this time, he pulled out a gun, and shot Mrs. Garrison.

"Kickass!" cheered Cartman, though the other children seemed to be too scared to share his sentiment.

Cartman too became grim once he realized the black-clad child was now staring at him. Perhaps drawing attention to himself had not been the best idea. However, the creepy boy's attention did not linger on the residential fatass for very long. He glanced around the classroom, at first Craig and then Clyde, then Wendy, and finally his gaze stopped on Timmy.

"T-Timmeh?" The wheelchair-bound child asked nervously.

Black cowl nodded, then turned his attention back to Wendy, nodding again.

"Ay! What do you think you're doing? I demand some answers here." Cartman was too curious at what the exchange had meant, and too annoyed at being passed over to be afraid. He would not be kept in the dark for long.

Suddenly Wendy, hair falling into her face, jumped atop her desk, a bestial look about her obscured features. At the same moment, Timmy let out a maniacal cry and pulled an axe out from behind his back. The two gleefully lunged at Craig and Clyde respectively. It was clear they were out for blood.

"Holy shit!" Craig exclaimed, narrowly rolling out of the way of Wendy's clutches.

Clyde too, had managed to barely avoid being cleaved in two. "Let's get out of here!"

The two boys both fled from the classroom like bats out of Hell, Wendy and Timmy hot on their heels. Now Cartman remained alone with the mysterious killer. This certainly was not an ideal situation. He looked at the boy across from him. Black cowl didn't appear to have any desire to kill him just yet, though his presence certainly wasn't very soothing either.

Without warning, the light shining in from the windows vanished completely, startling Eric Cartman. Keeping one eye on Black cowl, he waddled to the window and peered out. The scene that met him was not a pleasing one in the slightest.

The sun had been blotted out entirely, as if in eclipse, and from below, as far as the eye could see, were zombies, honing in on South Park Elementary. Accompanying them were the occasional demon of Hell, a few vampires, some werewolves, and a number of other horrifying monsters. A deformed flying creature hit the window full force. It didn't break through, but it did cause Cartman to leap back in surprise. This scene did not suit him in the slightest.

The fat child turned his attention back to Garrison's killer, who seemed to be standing patiently, as if waiting for him to make a move. Giving one last look at the mess outside of the window, Cartman decided he'd had enough. This horror movie setting did not suit him anymore.

"I am so done with this." He walked right past the hooded boy, and paused in the doorway to turn around and say "Screw you guys, I'm going home," before leaving the room, and the mysterious boy in the middle of it, all alone.


	10. Death Death Death

Been awhile, huh? I felt suddenly motivated to work on this the other day, and so here it is. Fortunately all that's left to write is chapter 11 and the epilogue, which should theoretically be shorter. Hoping that I'll keep feeling inspired. Also, for some reason Chapter Six was coming up as Chapter One for awhile. It should be fixed now.

Thanks to everyone who's read this far.

* * *

"Screw you guys, I'm going home" Cartman shouted indignantly, before turning on his heel and marching right out of the classroom, leaving a very confused little murderer to stare after him in silence. Cartman, however, was the least of his priorities now. He grinned knowingly, and set about tidying up the classroom to his liking. After all, everything had to be perfect for his grand finale.

ooo

The halls of South Park Elementary were empty, owing less to the fact that class was still in session, and more to the fact that most of the staff and student body had met their untimely ends over the course of the last week. An unsettling calm had befallen the building, a precursor to the upcoming storm. Any moment now, all hell was set to break loose.

The silence, however, soon gave way to the distant sound of shuffling feet, as if two—no three—someones were running at top speed. Following them, was the muffled sound of wheels squeaking away, almost as if a four-wheeled device was in pursuit. Then the sound of screams echoed down the hallway, as Craig and Clyde burst around the corner, with Wendy and Timmy on their heels. So focused on fleeing for dear life were the boys, that they barely managed to pull a sudden stop just short of plowing down one very irate Eric Cartman.

As the plump young tyrant trotted away, Craig and Clyde watched, almost hypnotized as he failed to pay any heed to the chaos unfolding around him. It was as if he was in his own little world, and the hell that was the present had no part in it. Fortunately for the formerly fleeing pair, Wendy and Timmy too stopped their pursuit, and watched Cartman retreat, confused as to how he could simply walk out of the school like that, and perhaps also as to how he had managed to pass them so quickly if he had been traveling at his usual sluggish walking speed. The four figures stood in a silence that could have been comical under different circumstances, watching the large lump that was Cartman's fat ass disappear from sight.

At that moment, Wendy and Timmy seemed to finally recall their desire to murder Craig and Clyde, and the latter two remembered that they had been fleeing from certain death only moments before. Four pairs of eyes met briefly in a silent vow to forget about the atmosphere-breaking event they had just witnessed, and continued with the chase.

ooo

The boys came to a fork in the hallway, and without time to debate the pros and cons of each option, turned in the direction their gut was pulling them, hoping that the other would choose the same. After all, they were genre savvy enough by now to know that splitting up would be certain death.

Craig turned left.

Clyde turned right.

Both swore inwardly when they grimly realized their error, but there was no time to turn around now, not while fleeing for dear life, though they were certain dear life would be expiring shortly, given the circumstances. The pursuers, naturally, had fewer qualms about splitting up. Wendy turned left, following Craig with a manic grin on her ghastly features, while Timmy swerved his chair to the right, and wheeled after Clyde as fast as the device would take him.

The chase suffered only one more brief interruption before its conclusion, and it took the form of a massive earthquake.

Students struggled to remain upright as the earth around them tried its hardest to toss them about. Poor Timmy was completely at the mercy of the quake and, to Clyde's momentary relief, slid backwards down the hallway with a startled cry of "Timmeh."

Lockers were ripped from walls, one flew open, missing Craig's face by a hair's breadth, but he noted with a satisfied smirk that, judging from the grunt behind him, it had succeeded in clotheslining Wendy.

Classroom doors slammed open and closed as the quake continued, and Clyde was fairly certain that he heard the sound of glass shattering somewhere behind him. What he didn't see was the earth outside splitting to form a giant crevasse, swallowing a number of zombies along with it.

After what felt like an eternity, the violent shaking subsided, and the chase continued, each boy with a marginally larger distance between himself and the threat behind him.

ooo

A creeping realization was slowly dawning on Clyde as he fled, gasping for breath. He had made the wrong choice after all; the hall that he was running down culminated in a dead end, which would become visible after turning the next corner. It was the end of the line. What was he to do? He could try to fight Timmy off, but something about that thought seemed wrong. After all, the boy had an axe, and even though death was inevitable, Clyde had never quite considered himself brave.

Resigning himself to his fate, the little boy in the red coat turned the corner, the squealing of wheels on tile drawing closer as his pace slowed. The "second fattest boy in the class" was simply not meant for all of this running.

He was not expecting to find any chance of escape in this dreary time, so the discovery of a flight of stairs lurking at the end of the hallway was pleasantly surprising. He was saved! Timmy was confined by the limitations of his wheelchair; he'd never be able to make it up these stairs.

_There shouldn't be stairs here. This is wrong. Does it lead to an attic? You know you're not supposed to go into attics. When did South Park Elementary get an attic? _He suppressed the slew of misgivings about the situation nagging him from the back of his mind, and bounded up the stairs, leaving a perturbed Timmy behind him.

The staircase indeed led to an attic. Clyde could understand why he hadn't known of its existence—it seemed as if no one had paid it a visit in years. A generous heaping of dust and mold served to veil the identity of every item the boy laid eyes on; he made a vow not to touch anything.

Maybe he was finally safe. If, as all signs indicated, no one knew of the attic, maybe he'd be able to hide away in here until the crisis was over . . . if there was an end to it that was. He decided not to dwell on that depressing thought. For now, all he could do was catch his breath. He'd answer questions of extended survival when that bridge was reached.

A soft "ding" sound brought him out of his gloomy thoughts. Ding? What in this attic would make that sound? Had it come from . . . behind him?

_Squeak_

_Squeak_

A sense of dread dawned on poor Clyde. He recognized that sound. Slowly, hesitantly he turned around. His fears were realized.

There before him sat Timmy, a murderous gleam in his eye, before the dusty outline of an elevator. Clyde screamed in terror as the crippled boy wheeled closer, muttering "Timmy, Timmy, Timmy," under his breath like a mantra, as he moved to close the gap between the two boys.

Cowering, Clyde tried to run away, but realized with horror that in backing away from Timmy, he had placed himself in a corner. He was trapped.

"Timmy, please, you don't want to do this! We're friends Timmy! Aren't we friends?" he pleaded hysterically. Timmy seemed unmoved, and closed in on Clyde's shivering form, axe raised.

The scream was short, and followed by the sound of axe meeting flesh. After that: silence.

ooo

Craig had managed slightly more luck in the way of strategic positioning. He had chosen the quickest path to the school's exit, and was now making a bee line for it. Unfortunately, undead Wendy was, if nothing else, speedy, and his endurance was giving out. He'd have to escape soon, or he too would be doomed.

He could see those heavenly double doors now. All that remained between him and salvation was a set of stairs and several rows of upended cafeteria tables. He hadn't thought of what he'd do to throw Wendy off his trail once outside, but Craig was quite certain that he'd be safe if he could only get out of this cursed building.

A small voice in the back of his mind warned him about stairs, but he was honestly too scared to care. Besides, these stairs didn't lead to an attic _or_ a basement, so the boy in blue figured he was probably safe. He took the stairs three at a time, hoping that Wendy's shorter legs would slow her down a little.

Obstacle one was out of the way. Next up was the tables. He weaved expertly around the mess left by the earthquake, noting gratefully that Wendy's steps were sounding slower and farther away. He could do this.

Gathering the last of his energy, he lunged at the doors, pushing them open, his face alight with the promise of escape.

The second he beheld the world that awaited him, any hope for salvation was shattered. The school may have been every one of his nightmares come to life, but beyond the interior of the yellow building was literally hell. The sky was black, the ground covered in flames and debris from the earlier debacle, and all of the terrors mankind had ever dreamed were proceeding to make the city of South Park their sinister playground.

Craig stepped back, letting the doors close before him, hopes dashed beyond repair. He turned to face his death. Behind him, Wendy smiled sweetly, but with a glow to her eyes that revealed her demonic intentions.

"This is all their fault isn't it? Stan and those guys." Wendy only giggled in reply. "They're always getting into trouble; this is exactly the kind of shit they'd cause." He paused, glaring at the floor while Wendy graciously allowed him his last words. "I hate those guys. So. Much."

Wendy took a step towards the boy in blue, and laid a chilly hand on his shoulder. She brought her other to Craig's chin, and lifted it so their eyes could meet. She wanted to see the unbridled terror within them—the look of a human being faced with their own death. Finally, in Sasa's raspy voice she soothingly uttered a small condolence. "It's okay. I hate them too." And then she lunged.

ooo

_Please let him be all right. Please let him be all right. Please let him be all right._ Kyle pleaded internally as he raced toward the kindergarten classroom. He had lost both of his parents. If Ike was taken from him as well, the poor boy didn't know what he would do. The world around him was crumbling, but he paid it no mind. All he could think about was reaching that classroom and saving the one thing that mattered most right now.

A hand roughly grabbed his shoulder and wheeled him around, and his instincts kicked him, causing him to lash out at his assailant with a well-placed punch. It wasn't until Stan was lying on the ground that he realized that he'd just assaulted his best friend.

"Stan?"

"Yeah," he groaned, crawling back to his feet. "You got me good."

"What are you doing here?" He demanded, but even as he spoke, he was inching off to Ike's classroom. Whatever Stan had to say wasn't worth letting his baby brother die for.

"Kyle, we can't play the hero!"

"And why not? He's my brother Stan!"

"Heroes die Kyle!" Stan spat, clutching both of Kyle's shoulders to hold him in place. Kyle did not appreciate the gesture, and promptly pushed his best friend away. Stan continued his pleading.

"I've lost my parents. I've lost my sister, and my grandpa, and my uncle, and everyone else. Please, don't make me lose my best friend too!"

"Don't make me lose _MY_ brother!" Kyle reflected Stan's words back to him, and turned to leave.

Neither boy expected to see Cartman approaching them.

"What do you want Fatass?" Kyle demanded, in no mood to put up with his nemesis's antics.

Cartman, however, ignored his comment. In fact, he ignored both boys altogether. Stan and Kyle both stood in the portly boy's path, but, without a word, or any other sign of malice, he strode right through them, muttering incoherently under his breath.

The best friends watched Cartman's retreating form, argument forgotten. They could only stare, agape, as their frenemy turned the corner and vanished from sight.

"I'm coming with you," Stan spoke up, breaking the astonished silence.

"Fine," Kyle agreed, and soon both of them were moving down the hallway at a full sprint.

ooo

They passed a seemingly innocuous window in a first-floor corridor, and it took Kyle a minute to register that Stan had stopped following him.

"What?" he cried impatiently. He didn't want any more hold-ups preventing him from reaching his brother. Stan for his part was staring out the window, entranced. Curious, Kyle decided he could spare a few more seconds to see what the trouble was.

It was the first time he'd clearly gotten a view of the outside world since he'd arrived at school that morning, and even then he'd been too cold, wet, and full of vengeance to focus on his surroundings. This wasn't their South Park anymore. It belonged to them now: the demons, and the zombies, and the others.

Stan seemed dazed by the sight. He was disgusted, and horrified, and he couldn't look away. The hellspawn invasion of the playground wasn't even the worst of it. Stan had noticed something from the corner of his eye—something terrifying, and he was afraid to avert his gaze. Looking through the glass, he could just barely make out his own reflection, but something was wrong. The image was too vague to tell, but he was pretty sure that it was not his reflection that he was staring through.

He was jostled from his thoughts by Kyle, with a friendly reminder that they were running out of time. The boys resumed their sprint away from the window, and in the knick of time too. The moment Stan had turned away from his reflection, the demon within began to reach out, grasping for the human boy. Had he remained in place even a second longer, the white, gnarled hands would have grabbed him, and dragged him to his death. Instead, Kyle had pulled him onwards, and away from the window. His reflection disappeared, and the creature with it.

ooo

At long last, the duo reached their destination: Ike's kindergarten classroom. They burst through the door, prepared for the worst; the teacher looked up from his copy of _I Like_, kindergartners sitting in a semi-circle around him, Ike holding on to a small metal box. Kyle and Stan stared awkwardly at the scene before them, their thunder stolen. It seemed that the boys had just interrupted story time.

"Excuse me?" The teacher seemed equal parts confused and annoyed at the interruption.

"I—uh—" Kyle stammered. He had been prepared to fight off monsters to protect his baby brother. He had not been prepared to face down a kindergarten teacher. Come to think of it, hadn't this guy substituted for Mrs. Garrison before?

"Ike Broflovski." He strangled out. "I need to pick up Ike Broflovski."

The teacher eyed him suspiciously. "Shouldn't you be in class right now?"

Kyle wore a deer in headlights look proudly on his face. He'd faced down far scarier things this week, why was this so damn difficult?

"Our—uh," he hesitated, "mother is here to pick him up. It's an emergency."

"Oh, well, it does seem there've been a lot of those lately. Go ahead."

There, that wasn't so bad. Kyle stepped into the circle to grab his brother's hand, but the young Canadian refused to budge.

"My mother's dead!" he screamed, slapping Kyle's hand away.

Kyle wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Then again, the teacher seemed equally uncomfortable.

"C'mon, Ike, we gotta get out of here." He tried dragging the boy from his place on the floor, but Ike became dead weight in his hands.

"No!" he cried. "I hate you Kyle!"

Kyle turned to Stan, silently pleading for help. His best friend could only shrug. How was he supposed to save Ike if Ike didn't want to cooperate? He didn't have long to dwell on his thoughts, for suddenly there was the sound of glass shattering, and a number of zombies began crawling into the room.

Heart racing, Kyle did the only thing he could think to do. He gathered up all of his strength and lifted the little boy into his arms. Ike immediately began flailing, but Kyle didn't let go. "Ready Ike?"

Ike's eyes widened. He knew what was coming.

"Kick the baby!" he cried, and punted his brother out the classroom door and into the hallway. Without turning to look at the chaos behind him, Kyle too, ran from the classroom, grabbing Stan's hand on the way out and dragging the other boy with him. Once in the hallway, he did the same to Ike, and soon the best friends were back to charging straight ahead at full speed, Ike trailing comically behind them. They had no idea of their destination, but it didn't matter, so long as they were away from the current danger.

ooo

Cartman was pissed. He'd been putting up with the literal week from hell like a good sport, but he was quite frankly sick of it. He wasn't going to play this game anymore. He stomped down the hallway in a foul temper. He could have walked through a murder and wouldn't have given it a second glance, so consumed was he in his temper.

He slowly stomped about the school, eventually reaching the front door without incident, and kicked a body out of his way on the way out. Stupid body, blocking the door like that. What an asshole.

Beyond the school building, the hungry zombie horde turned to eye the tasty morsel that had planted itself before them. Cartman paid them no heed, and stomped right on through. That wasn't any fun. Tasty human morsels were boring if they weren't fleeing in panic or fighting back. The zombies let the tubby little boy pass unmolested.

One zombie, a bit more stoned than the rest, braved approaching the angry child. "Do you wanna go get high?" it droned, holding a blunt to him. Even being undead could not cure Towelie of his habits.

Cartman, annoyed that something else was blocking his path, lunged forward and punched the zombie smart towel out of his way before pressing onward.

ooo

The door was flung open as a harried Stan, Kyle and Ike burst through, slamming it behind them. Hopefully anything that had decided to follow them back to the classroom was taken out in the process.

It had seemed to be the only logical place to go. Mrs. Garrison and a number of other students should still be there, and there was, after all, safety in numbers. Of course, the classroom was hardly as they'd left it. Now it was empty. Where could everyone have gone? They weren't attacked, were they?

Further inspection confirmed their fears, for there, lying on the ground in plain sight, was the grotesque corpse of Mrs. Garrison. Kyle tried to shield his brother from the sight, but the child seemed strangely unperturbed. Still clutching his box under one arm, he put a comforting hand on his big brother's shoulder as if to say "everything's gonna be okay."

"Well, would ya look at that?" The trio jumped at the unexpected sound, and turned to the windows, eyes wide with panic. There sat the mysteriously hooded boy, with only his malicious grin visible, his right hand place precariously on what appeared to be a pistol.

"Who are you?" Stan cried out, voice cracking in fear.

"Guess."

There was a moment of silence before Kyle spoke up, his voice full of venom. "You're the mastermind behind all of this."

"Bingo!" The kid hopped down from his window seat, carrying his weapon in a haphazard manner. Stan and Kyle tensed at the motion, the latter placing himself between the murderous boy in black, and Ike. The child merely laughed at their movements. "Please, it's not me you should be afraid of." He paused. "Well, actually yes, you should be afraid of me, but you've got more pressing concerns right now." He waved his hands to the door grandiosely.

The trio leapt back as the door inched open on cue. In stepped the possessed Wendy, followed by Timmy, a manic look in his eye.

"Wendy, no," Stan whimpered, eyes beginning to tear.

"Timmy?" Kyle seemed to be more surprised by the revelation than anything else. The other nodded, uttering his name in confirmation.

"Timmeh."

The villainous duo began to advance, leaving Stan, Ike, and Kyle in a very difficult situation, with danger on all sides. Kyle looked around wildly, trying to find anything that could be used to get them out of this situation. As a last ditch effort, he picked up Ike, brandishing the toddler like a weapon. Said weapon was less than amused.

The hooded boy, on the other hand, couldn't help but laugh. "_That's_ what you're fighting me with?" Kyle looked sheepish, but didn't let his guard down. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Stan, who seemed to have sunk to the floor within the last several seconds.

"C'mon Stan," he urged. "You gotta fight back!" His rallying cry seemed to go unheeded. Suddenly, Wendy was advancing. The redhead turned to face her. "You stay the hell away from him!" he threatened, brandishing Ike warningly. However, the girl's eyes remained on Stan, and with each step she took, something seemed to change in her countenance.

"Stan?" she squeaked out, trembling. This got his attention. The boy in the red poof ball hat looked at her, eyes full of hope.

"Wendy?"

"Oh Stan," she cried, collapsing to her knees and throwing her arms around him. "I—I remember everything! I can't—" her choked sobs cut her off. Stan could feel his stomach churning, and urged to not release its contents—not now.

"I went to help Dog Poo, and then Sasa crawled out of the television, and she took me over!" she cried rapidly, slurring words together in her hysterical state. "And I couldn't remember at first; I knew something wasn't right, but I didn't know what'd I'd been doing, and now everything's gone to hell and—and I've killed people! Tweek, and Kenny, and Jimmy and Craig, and so many others! Stan, I've EATEN people! I—I'm a monster!" She buried her face in his coat. The remaining occupants of the room seemed alternately amused or terrified at the exchange. She continued.

"And, I can feel her still inside of me, trying to get out! Oh Stan, she's going to kill you. She's going to kill everyone!" She paused, a thought dawning on her. She released the boy from her grasp and scooted back several feet on hands and knees. She met his gaze, her eyes no longer scared and tearful, but full of passionate resolve. "Kill me," she said flatly.

"What?" Stan squeaked, eyes widening further than he'd ever thought possible.

"Stan, she's forcing her way out of me. Any moment now she'll break free, and I'll be gone. Please Stan, I want to die while I'm still me." She lowered her gaze to the ground. "Please!" she begged again.

"I—" this was so fucked up. Stan wasn't a killer, and Wendy was the last person on Earth he'd ever want to kill even if he was. There was no way he could go through with it. At last, he shook his head. "Wendy, I just—I can't! I'm sorry!"

While the passionate exchange had been amusing for a little while, the hooded boy was rapidly growing bored. He was on a schedule to boot. He had no more time to waste on tender goodbyes. He motioned to Timmy, who began to wheel himself towards the pair on the floor, axe raised in one hand.

The movement caught Kyle's attention, and he cried out in warning, "Stan! Look out!" dropping Ike in the process. Stan turned his attention to the wheelchair-bound boy, but it was too late. He was nearly on top of them, axe en route to Stan's head. He pushed Wendy safely away and closed his eyes, bracing himself for the impact.

It never came.

"Ike!" It was Kyle's voice.

Ike had leapt at Timmy's chair, still clutching the mysterious box. Just what was the thing? The next thing Stan knew, Kyle was running to save his brother, Timmy was swinging his axe wildly at the small Canadian, and the boy was scrambling to attach his box to the back of the device, all in quick succession.

Ike finished his task first, and with sad eyes, said "Goodbye Kyle," before a flash of light burst from the box, momentarily blinding everyone within the room.

By the time Stan opened his eyes, Timmy, Ike, and the wheelchair were all gone, only Timmy's discarded axe remaining. "What the hell?"

Kyle was staring blankly at the spot that Ike had vanished from, too shocked to speak, and even the hooded boy seemed perturbed. "That box—"

"It was a time machine," Wendy interjected, in a daze. "Like the one we had built on the first day of the fourth grade." She stood, passing by Kyle to pick up the axe. The hooded boy watched her suspiciously. She flipped him off.

"Stan," she began again, voice utterly serious. "Please, I don't have a lot of time left." She grabbed one of his hands, and placed the axe into it, closing his fingers around the handle. "Kill me." He could only stutter helplessly. "You can do it Stan, for me." She leaned forward, placing a goodbye kiss on his lips.

It was all too much for the little boy, who took a step back before his stomach finally decided to release its contents—down the front of Wendy's purple coat. She lowered her head to appraise the damage, dark hair falling over her eyes. There she stayed for a long moment, before slowly she returned her gaze to her young boyfriend. It was no longer human.

She let out a monstrous scream before lunging at the frightened child. She was not expecting him to actually fight back. He swung the axe with all his might, finally cutting down the demoness.

He stared at the fresh corpse on the ground before him, axe falling from his slack fingers. "Wendy," he murmured, rapidly backing away from the body. He fell backwards to the ground, a look of horror on his face.

Kyle too had a look to match. He had yet to move an inch, face still transfixed on the last location of his little brother, as if staring hard enough would bring him back from wherever he'd gone.

A laugh came from the third occupant of the room. It began as a quiet snicker, but soon devolved into full scale maniacal hysterics. It was enough to pull both boys' attention from their fallen friends and family. There was still one more threat to overcome.

ooo

Cartman was finally home. The trip had miraculously gone without incident, as if God himself had been keeping him from harm. He stepped through the front door, finally breaking from his vexed daze. He was angry, and tired, and very, very hungry. Lucky for him, that last one would be easy enough to fix.

"Maaam," he whined, adding a quiver to his voice for maximum pity points. "Everyone at school was getting eaten, and Mrs. Garrison went and got shot, and there's zombies all over the place," his pitch raised at each pause; Eric was very good at sounding pitiful. He continued. "And I just want something delicious and smothered in fudge and chicken and stuff."

The tub of lard paused, waiting for the inevitable reply of "Right away Poopsiekins." It never came. The room remained silent. Cartman's mood darkened once again.

"Hey! What's the deal?" he shouted. "Do you want me to starve? Is that it?" He waited. Again there was no answer. Mumbling a string of curses, he set out to find the lazy and mysteriously absent woman he called "mother."

It didn't take him long. He found her in the kitchen, sitting at the table looking perplexed. The chubby child stomped up to her and began anew with his tirade. "Why are you just sitting here? I'm starving to death right now, and you're doing nothing to help it! What's wrong with you? You want me to die, is that it?"

"Why yes Poopsiekins." Her answer caught him completely off-guard.

"Mam?" He suddenly felt very small and childlike as he gazed up at his mother in dawning horror. This wasn't his mother. Her face wasn't that wrinkly, her teeth not that rotten, and her eyes were definitely not that white. The realization of the situation had finally dawned on Eric Cartman.

He fled as fast as his stubby legs would carry him, up the stairs and into his room, where he locked the door, and hid under the blankets. He reached for his treasured toy, Clyde Frog, and held it close, murmuring softly. "We're gonna be okay. I'm gonna wake up and not be in this stupid horror movie anymore, and Mam's not gonna be a stupid Deadite, and she'll make me lots of cake, and take me to KFC, and buy me a PS3, and it'll be awesome." He continued rambling on, clearly seeing his fantasy of a normal South Park life before his eyes. "We're gonna be okay Clyde Frog."

"No you're not."

Cartman let out a terrified shriek and flung the stuffed toy across the room, where it hit the door and lay limp. He sighed in relief. He was just being paranoid. Clyde Frog wasn't evil. He was the best friend a boy could have.

"You're gonna die Eric." Cartman let out another shriek and tumbled off the bed as the stuffed frog crawled to its feet and smiled maliciously at him.

"This is just a fucking dream! You're not real!" The boy cried, trying to make for the window. Another toy jumped on his shoulder and bit him. He flung it away.

"We are real. We are very real. But you won't be." He looked on in horror as one by one his precious toys began to come to life, all speaking as one entity, and as one entity, they leapt for him, latching on and biting, clawing, smothering him. Eric struggled, flinging toys around the messy room, but for every toy he dislodged, three more came to take its place. Soon, he was too tired to flail and too tired to fight, and thus ended the life of Eric Cartman.

He probably deserved it.

In concurrence with the brutal scene inside, the sun outside finished blacking out completely. All of South Park stood in total darkness.

* * *

And then there were two.


End file.
